City bus stand fast turning into red light area

Rachna Khaira

Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, February 8

The flesh trade has spread its tentacles in many areas of the city.

Not only transgender, even school and college-going girls are allegedly lured into the trade by the mafia, claimed a sex worker from the transgender community, requesting anonymity.

According to another sex worker, while a transgender gets anything from Rs 300 to Rs 2,000 an hour, a girl’s rate is decided upon her age and “experience” in the trade.

Though the mafia has identified several “trade points” in the city in connivance with police officials, the trade has been going on openly in the bus stand area in the city where young girls could be seen with their clients in private buses parked inside the bus stand at night.

General Manager, Punjab Roadways, Maninder Pal Singh, said to curb the menace, the department had recently installed around 10 CCTV cameras at various locations inside the bus stand.

“Also, we have asked for installation of computers to monitor the bus stand area round the clock,” said Singh.

He, however, said he was unable to ban the parking of private buses inside the bus stand as they pay Rs 50 as parking fee for a single day.

The investigations further revealed that the staff of the private buses were charging commission ranging from Rs 500 to 1,000 an hour, which includes a ‘share’ for the police as well. Also, two hotels situated on the Garha road were reported to be entertaining ‘couples’, charging heavily from them.

During the visit of this correspondent to the bus stand late on Tuesday night, many such pairs could be seen entering various hotels in and around the bus stand.

Shockingly, when this correspondent spoke to some sex workers, they claimed that besides giving a “share” to the bus stand staff, they also have to pay to the local police deployed at the bus stand post and even have to “entertain them and their friends some times”.

“This is really insane to take a cut from our income which we earn by selling our body and self-esteem every day. What else do we do, we do not have a single rehabilitation project running for us in the district,” said another transgender sex worker.

Also, she revealed that along with Indian students, some foreign students studying in various universities too were involved in the trade.

The investigations also revealed that the recent involvement of ‘educated’ call girls and foreign nationals in the trade had spread the trade globally through online trade. This had girls active on social networking sites also under threat.

The modus operandi of the flesh traders is to form groups on social networking sites and trap poor and highly ambitious women and sex workers and send them to various states.

“The organiser in Jalandhar used to send photographs, age and other particulars of the girls to the organisers in Mumbai, Chennai, and Bengaluru and even other countries. The head of the gang selects the girl, arranges for boarding and lodging and prepares the list of customers and then does the business. Later, he will contact the organisers in other states through the social networking sites and send the women to other states, said a source.

Also, he informed that the trade gets a huge boost during the “NRI season”.

“During the NRI season that falls between November to January, the trade gets a huge boost. The meetings were planned even before the arrival of clients from abroad. Not only in Jalandhar, trips were also planned to nearby hill stations and even to places like Goa and Jammu and Kashmir,” said another source.

Though Jalandhar Police Commissioner Arpit Shukla could not be contacted as he was out of station, ACP Deepika Singh, Community Police Officer, assured of speedy action in the matter.

She said the department would look into the alleged involvement of local police officials posted at the bus stand area as well.