Siliguri, July 6: You can’t get pizzas over the phone, but sex you can.

The business of selling sex is getting bigger and more organised. Beauty parlours doubling as massage centres, upmarket hotels, private guesthouses and even sprawling resorts on the outskirts of Siliguri are redefining the rules.

Intelligence and police reports suggest the flesh trade is growing keeping pace with the ever expanding trading hub of north Bengal and gateway to the Northeast. The revelation comes in the wake of the recent arrest of a kingpin of an organised sex peddling racket in the town. “The organised sex racket bubble burst with the arrest of one Om Prakash More from a pleasure house in the upmarket residential area of Hakimpara in Siliguri. Two hotel owners were arrested under the Immoral Trafficking Act last month for alleged involvement in an inter-state flesh trade racket. It is only the tip on an iceberg,” a senior police official said.

Elaborating on the modus operandi of the organised sex racke, allegedly run by a Calcutta-based cartel, the official said: “The customer gets in touch with the cartel’s pointman in Siliguri and gives his preferences of the kind of girl he is looking for. The pointman gives the cellphone number of the girl who matches his preference. The customer fixes an appointment and the deal is struck. We have information that the cartel also provides girls from Calcutta and Delhi. Often a tour package is offered with an escort included. The majority of the cartel’s clientele are well-heeled businessmen from neighbouring Bihar and Nepal and senior executives and bureaucrats on a business trip to the region.”

The police tracked down the gang members after the chance recovery of a cellphone, which they kept activated and zeroed in on the racket.

The cartel usually uses upmarket hotels in Siliguri, Darjeeling, Kalimpong and Gangtok. “Arrangements can also be made for the services in off-beat tourist spots like Lava, Lolegaon, Yoksum and even places in the Dooars. “Ever since we stumbled upon the organised racket, we have been keeping a close tab on some hotels and private resorts in and around Siliguri. Both men and women in mufti are stationed at certain rendezvous points, but shortage of manpower becomes a problem. A week ago, we had information that the cartel’s Calcutta-based kingpin was in town with a couple of high-end call girls, but before we could raid the hotel, the gang had managed to give us the slip,” said an official involved in the crackdown.

Inquiries by The Telegraph have revealed that the rates charged by the cartel range from Rs 5,000 to Rs 10,000 depending on the status of the girls. The cartel also uses a large number of girls from Nepal. These girls usually come to Siliguri via the border town of Kakarvitta.