The police have begun cracking down on prostitution rackets run by African women, more than a week after the city’s top cop reached out to the expatriates and sought their cooperation in curbing illegal activities.
The Banaswadi police arrested two African women for offering late-night sex services on Saturday.
The suspects are Ugandan national Maria Nalwada (26), a resident of Hennur Bande, and Mariya Komba (33), a Tanzanian residing in Kammanahalli.
Sangeeta Chauhan, a woman police sub-inspector, led a team that raided the women who were allegedly soliciting clients on Kammanahalli Main Road around 11.15 pm. Two women constables, Nagarathna and Ranjitha, found the suspects wearing skimpy clothes and shouting “Rs 2,000”. Certain that the women were into prostitution, the constables tried to detain them, but the suspects started running. The policewomen eventually chased them down.
The real drama, however, began when the police questioned the women. The suspects made rather incriminating claims.
They said they had come to India illegally and had neither a passport nor a visa. But the police are not taking the claims at face value. They believe that the women could be lying. A case under the Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act and the Foreigners Act has been registered.
On March 7, city police commissioner Bhaskar Rao attended an interaction with members of the African community. The event was organised by the police’s eastern division, which has jurisdiction over localities such as KR Puram, Kammanahalli, Hennur, HBR Layout, Halasuru and Indiranagar that have a large African population.
Ironically, Saturday’s arrests were also made in eastern Bengaluru.