A beauty parlour on Cuttack Road in Bhubaneswar. Police had raided this parlour and arrested some pimps and girls. Telegraph picture

Bhubaneswar, June 5: The flourishing beauty business in the city has a sleazy side. With police and the administration having little control over the mushrooming beauty parlours, a number of them have been found to be acting as convenient fronts for flesh trade in the city.

Last week, police busted sex rackets operating in three beauty parlours in the Laxmisagar area and arrested their owners along with pimps. In the city, there are nearly 85 parlours along the Cuttack-Puri road under Laxmisagar and Baragada police station areas. Though official estimates put the number beauty parlours in the city at around 170, sources said the exact number of such shops could be well above 500.

“We conduct raids only after definite information so that we can catch them red-handed,” said Akshaya Kumar Mishra, assistant commissioner of police (ACP) zone- IV, who is in-charge of raids on such premises.

The police said that most of the girls rescued during the raids were from Bengal, but some also hailed from the coastal districts of Odisha. They invariably come from poor families being lured into the trade by pimps, who promise good money.

“Because of anonymity, girls from outside the state are preferred. The pimps, who hail either from Bihar or Bengal, hire these girls using their local contacts. Initially, the girls are lured with offers for jobs at beauty parlours. Later, they are forced into flesh trade. Girls from poor families from coastal Odisha too fall into the trap,” said an official.

A 22-year-old girl from Ganjam working in a beauty parlour at Saheed Nagar area committed suicide in March this year with her family members alleging that the owner of the beauty saloon had forced her into sex trade. The girl had also pointed an accusing finger at the owner in her suicide note, but the police did not follow it up drawing criticism from various quarters.

Officials admit that there is no restriction on opening a parlour. The owner will simply have to avail a trade licence from the municipal corporation. The easy licence process is evident as parlours are mushrooming in residential areas and private houses.

Vaishali Mohapatra of Finnese, a reputed parlour in the city, said that at present only a trade licence was needed to open a parlour, and the owners have simply to inform the police that they were setting up a shop.

“There should be a mechanism to control and regulate the beauty business because parlours indulging in sex trade have been giving the business a bad name. There should be guidelines on where and how to have such parlours,” Mohapatra said.

The police too admit that all beauty parlours are not indulging in illegal activities. The sleazy ones are generally located in remote corners of residential areas or near slums, where their activities would not raise eyebrows.

The parlours raided recently were located near slums or in secluded places. In most of these areas there are no working street lights.

The local residents said that though they had been suspecting illegal activities in these establishments they had no evidence. Besides, the parlours owners are either influential people or have links with the administration.

“We see many men moving around these parlours and that makes us suspicious. We have called the police several times in the past, but to no avail,” said a resident near Station Bazaar, where a sex racket was busted last week.

There have been allegations that most of these parlours were indulging in sex trade in connivance with the local police. A sub-inspector of Laxmisagar police station was transferred last week following raids on the parlours. Though the police did not give the exact reason behind his transfer, it is believed that he had been there for more than 10 years and allegedly used to pass information about raids to the parlour owners.

Following the busting of sex rackets, the police commissioner is planning to write to the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation and other concerned officials not to allow opening of more parlours in the city.

“But our raids will continue and we will see what can be done to control these parlours,” the ACP said.