A Tripura based Muslim couple has been arrested for running a sex racket using minor girls in Chennai. The girls were brought to Chennai on the promise of jobs and forced into prostitution. The couple physically abused them when they refused to submit. They also filmed them and forced into prostitution by threatening to leak the videos.

Salima Kathun and Anveer Hussain, a Tripura based couple, were arrested by police from a lodge in Chennai. The couple had brought girls aged from 13 to 17 from Tripura by promising employment in beauty parlors. They paid their parents 13,000 each and brought the girls to Chennai on January 14. They had brought a 17 year old girl, took her to Kolkata, Bengaluru and Chennai and pushed her into prostitution with the help of Alauddin and Moinudin.

They had rented a house in Kelambakkam in Chennai to run the sex racket. The neighbors who became suspicious about the activities going on in the house informed the local police in Kelambakkam. But policemen who visited the house accepted bribes and did not book them. The gang had planned to take the girls to Bengaluru and vacated the house.

They were made to stay at a lodge near the railway station and to be sold to a broker. The girls somehow managed to call the Childline number. Following this police and Child Welfare Committee officials went to the lodge and rescued 4 girls. Two men who were partners with the Tripura Muslim couple have absconded.

The girls were forced to remain without clothes and assaulted using belts and logs. They were gang raped and made to act like Lesbians all of which were filmed. The girls were forced into submitting to their demands by threatening to leak the videos. The girls were given a target of earning Rs.50,000 a day and forced to lie with many men.

Salima and Alauddin who took the videos have been booked under POCSO and arrested. Police are on the lookout for the other two men. The corrupt policemen who let them off initially have been moved to the waiting list. The girls have been placed in a children’s home. Such incidents of minors being pushed into prostitution by Muslims is on the rise. Recently a PFI leader was arrested in Mangaluru for running a sex racket by trapping college girls.