Cuttack, May 5: City police today claimed to have unearthed a sex racket with the arrest of seven persons, including five women.

Acting on a tip-off, a special police team raided a house located at CDA sector 10 and arrested five women including the kingpin Gitarani Mohanty (40). Two other persons including an agent and a client have also been arrested.

“We had specific inputs and following the direction of police commissioner B.K. Sharma and DCP Amitendranath Sinha, the house at sector 10 was raided and all the culprits were arrested,” said additional deputy commissioner of police Jaydev Sarangi.

Police sources said that Gitarani, who hails from Kendrapara district, was actively involved in the illegal flesh trade during the last one year.

She also allegedly lured a few other girls from Balasore, Jajpur, Kendrapara and other districts into the racket.

Gitarani was running the racket from the house for the past seven months in the city. Besides Gitarani, an agent, Aravinda Mohanty (31) and a client, Prakash Rout (42) were also arrested from the spot.

Mohanty and Rout work with a private insurance company in Cuttack. Mohanty is alleged to be in league with Gitarani. They used to charge between Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 from their customers, police alleged.

“We are probing into the matter as we suspect the involvement of few other persons. The identity of the house owner is yet to be ascertained,” Sarangi said.

Three mobile phones, many objectionable items, two motorcycles and Rs 9,500 were seized in the raid today.

All the accused have been arrested under sections 3, 4, 5, 7 and 8 of the Immoral Trafficking Prohibtion Act, 1956, and are likely to be produced before the court after a medical tests today.

This is said to be a major breakthrough for the police, who had recently busted similar sex rackets at Chandrasekharpur and Laxmisagar areas in Bhubaneswar.