The city police have taken into custody one Dhanapala Arun Kumar, who allegedly cheated a number of women, including his wife, and had forced them into flesh trade, here on Wednesday.
Prior to the arrest, Mahila Chetana, a women rights organisation, organised a press meet on Wednesday, along with two victims, including the wife of the accused.
According to the allegations made by the two victims and Ms. Padma of Mahila Chetana, Arun Kumar, who worked as a casual worker in a cinema theatre, had befriended Geetanjali and married her about 11 years ago. Later the couple had two children. According to Ms. Geetanjali, her husband had been mentally and physically torturing her to get into flesh trade.
Ms. Geetanjali alleged that in the last couple of years, Arun Kumar had sweet-talked about nine other young girls and married them. But after spending a few days with them, he had forced them into prostitution or sold them to brothels at different places.
Murder allegation
The other victim, Lakshmi, alleged that her husband Ramu was a friend of Arun Kumar. And in 2019, Arun had confessed to her that he had killed Ramu.
In 2019, Ramu had died under mysterious circumstances outside a bar and since then, Arun had been threatening Lakshmi to live with him and trying to force her into prostitution.
Unable to bear the harassment, both the women had approached the police and Mahila Chetana, for help.
According to the police, Geetanjali had approached Disha Police Station on February 18 that Arun Kumar had been harassing her and sought counselling.
Arun Kumar was an accused in a prostitution case in Anakapalle Town and a ganja case under Two Town Police Station. He was arrested in July 2020 and was released on bail in February 17.
The police also said that a complaint from Geetanjali through WhatsApp was received on March 18 and the same was forwarded to Kancharapalem Police Station, for further action. Her statement was recorded on March 19 at the police station.
Police Commissioner Manish Kumar Sinha said that an FIR has been registered and the accused has been taken into custody.
DCP (Law and Order) Aishwarya Rastogi will supervise the investigation of the case and all allegations, including trafficking of women and murder of Ramu, will be thoroughly investigated, he said.
Reacting to the media reports, DGP Gautam Sawang has asked the city police to speed up the investigation.
