Lucknow, June 9: A police officer and a cable operator paid at least 20 schoolgirls to feature in smutty scenes and sold the compact discs and MMS clips, police said today.

The scandal was unearthed in Gorakhpur last month after a thief was caught with a CD he had just stolen from the home of the kingpin, railway police inspector G.P. Srivastava, officers said.

Srivastava and three accomplices — including cable operator Sudhir Saxena who runs a local news channel and a small-time Bhojpuri film actor — were arrested in May. But the scope of the racket unfolded only after the police picked up two of the girls featured in the footage.

The gang had allegedly used the two Class XI girls, aged 17 and 18, who stayed in a private hostel in Gorakhpur and studied in a well-known English-medium school, to persuade the other 18 girls to shoot for the racket.

Saxena would bring these girls from nearby towns and villages to appear in “cultural programmes” for his channel, and introduce them to the two hostel girls, the police said.

“The cable operator had hired a room in a Gorakhpur hotel continuously since last December, where the CDs would be filmed,” an officer said. “The gang also ran a prostitution ring and we have arrested four girls from this other racket, too.”

Srivastava’s home was raided on May 23 and the police seized film-making equipment including a video camera, recorders and porn CDs. Another 20 CDs were found in the hotel room, said Gorakhpur SSP Piyus Bordia.

“In all these CDs, minor girls were exploited. The gang had lured them with money. We are trying to identify the girls so we can arrest all the persons involved,” he said. “Some of the girls, who appear to be just 14 or 15, probably came from Nepal.”

According to the police, many of Gorakhpur’s powerful people were involved in the scam, either as gang members or as clients. The police have raided the home of a woman member of a political party —a suspected accomplice — but she gave them the slip.

“We have obtained an arrest warrant against a chief engineer of North Eastern Railway who happens to be one of the gang’s chief patrons,” said Brijesh Mishra, chief of the investigating team.

The station house officer of a police station in Gorakhpur, Wakridan Ali, believed to be close to Saxena, has been shunted because the investigators thought his role suspicious.

The two hostel girls are from Maharajganj, 70km from Gorakhpur. Two of the four other girls arrested — who are not students and are involved in the flesh trade — were picked up from the woman politician’s home.

Mishra said these sex workers were sent to the homes of top officials — or to hotels where they met rich clients — in various cities such as Varanasi and Lucknow.