Motihari: A team of Turkauliya, Banjariya and Mufassil police on Monday busted an organised sex racket by arresting 12 people and rescuing 17 women working in an orchestra band in East Champaran.

This comes barely days after six minors were rescued from an orchestra party during raids at a village in Kotwa police station on August 24.

Acting on a tip-off, the police team raided Mahnava Bazar under Turkauliya police station, about 190km northwest of Patna.

Turkauliya police station officer-in-charge Akhilesh Kumar Mishra said 12 people had been arrested and 17 women, five of them minors, were rescued from the orchestra. "These women, from various places in Maharastra, Nepal, Odisha and Bengal, were forced to work for the orchestra band for quite some time," Mishra said. "Nothing more can be said on the matter until further investigation."

Motihari superintendent of police (SP) Upendra Kumar Sharma said the girls' statements would soon be recorded in court.

"Raids were conducted on the basis of a tip-off by an NGO, which had located the presence of two girls in East Champaran after they went missing from Nepal," said the Motihari SP. "The NGO had approached police on September 2," Sharma said.