A sex racket was busted in Bally, Howrah, with the arrest of a couple and their teenaged daughter, along with three other girls and as many men.

Police said the couple — Swaran and Tapasi Mitra — were running the racket for the past eight months at a rented three-room apartment on the second floor of a building on Ramanath Bhattacharya Street.

They suspect the couple’s 18-year-old daughter — a BA student in a local college — was a party to the crime.

“The couple claimed that they were running a massage parlour. But a preliminary probe revealed that they were operating a sex racket,” said Niraj Kumar Singh, the superintendent of police (Howrah).

Neighbours said “unknown men and women” would often drop in at the apartment ever since Swaran and Tapasi Mitra took it on rent eight months ago.

Tapasi told the neighbours that she was running a massage parlour — the girls were her students and the men customers.

Around 10am on Sunday, the neighbours saw three girls and three middle-aged men enter the apartment within half-an-hour.

“We barged in and saw the girls and the men in a compromising position. We immediately informed the police, who arrived and arrested all those present in the flat,” said Simanta Kumar, a resident of Ramanath Bhattacharya Street.

An officer said Swaran was earlier involved in looting railway wagons in Liluah, Belur and Bally.