Navi Mumbai: A co-opted councillor of the Shiv Sena and a former co-opted councillor of the BJP in Pen are among four men who have been arrested by the police at the weekend in a prostitution racket busted at La Residency Apartment Hotel in Sector 19 of Ulwe last week.The racket was busted in a raid conducted on Wednesday after sending a decoy customer. The police said a woman, Sarika Gaikwad (33), was arrested for working as a pimp. Two minor sisters, aged 13 and 17, hailing from Delhi were rescued.The four accused men were arrested on Saturday. Their names were disclosed by Gaikwad during interrogation after obtaining her police custody remand for two days from the Mangaon court, said senior inspector Arjun Rajane.Rajane said, “The four arrested accused are Sena co-opted Pen councillor Upendra Anant Koladkar (32), a sculptor from Kumbhar Aali in Pen town; BJP’s Pen ex-councillor Kunal Vikas Naik (31), a transporter residing in Ramai complex, Prabhu Aali, Pen, who acted as a middleman in arranging the minor girls for seeking prostitution through the accused woman pimp Sarika Gaikwad.; Pramod Kamal Patil (43), a realtor from Chinchpada, Pen; and Achyut Gajanan Patil (42), a contractor residing at Satyanarayan Residency, Phase 3 in Pen town. All four men were arrested on June 20 from Pen.”The special Pocso cases court in Mangaon remanded the men in police custody till June 24. The arrested men are being interrogated in police custody to find out whether more people are involved in the prostitution racket.Rajane said, “The four arrested men were made accused in the FIR that was registered on June 17 after arresting the key accused woman pimp Gaikwad, booked under relevant BNS sections for the offences of procuration of child, selling child for purposes of prostitution, trafficking of more than one person and human trafficking involving more than one child. As the two rescued girls were minors, we had invoked Pocso Act, 2012, for abetment of an offence and punishment for attempting to commit an offence against a child along with Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act, 1956) for keeping or managing a brothel, punishment for living on the earnings of prostitution and procuring, inducing, or taking any person for the purpose of prostitution, and also the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015, for sale and procurement of children for any purpose and abetment of offences.“
