Bhubaneswar: Police on Sunday rescued three women from a sex racket that was being run in the state capital by a government employee.

The women were rescued from a house at Nayapalli. The police said the racket operated from the rented accommodation for the past 18 months in the guise of a speech language therapy centre.

The police said the mastermind of the racket was an employee of the pachayati raj department. He had taken the house on rent from the owner, who stayed at Baramunda.

"The signboard of the house portrayed it as a speech and language therapy centre. In reality, a spa and a parlour was run from the house. The girls also used to solicit the customers," said a police officer.

"The main perpetrator is currently posted in Kandhamal district. He had engaged a 24-year-old woman to run the racket and also visited the city twice a month to collect money from her," he said. The arrested customers are Deepak Parida, 28, Raghunath Pandey, 27, Binod Kumar, 26, and Biranchi Narayan Barik, 28.

The police said they had detained the woman pimp and she was being interrogated in order to nab the government employee.

"We raided the house acting on a tip-off and busted the racket. We will also serve a notice to the house owner to ascertain whether he was aware of the trade," said deputy commissioner of police Satyabrata Bhoi.

The police said the three rescued women were in their 20s and belonged to various districts of Odisha. "The woman pimp lured them and engaged them in the trade. All of them will be sent to a short-stay home after a medical examination," the police said.