A businessman who has a stake in several bars off VIP Road and New Town's Chinar Park was arrested early on Thursday on the charge of trafficking.

An officer of the Bidhannagar commissionerate said Ajmal Siddiqui, who owns Baywatch bar and hotel near Teghoria, among others, was picked up from his home in Salt Lake's FE block. "We had been looking for him for 10 days," the officer said.

The police had been looking for Siddiqui since busting a sleaze racket and rescuing three girls from a Teghoria guest house on August 28.

Another officer said the girls had told the cops that they used to dance in a bar owned by Siddiqui.

"They said they worked for Siddiqui, who kept them confined in the guest house and forced them into prostitution," the officer said.

Siddiqui has been charged under IPC Section 370 (buying or disposing of any person as a slave). If convicted, he can be jailed for up to seven years.

There are more than 70 bars on the 4km stretch of VIP Road, between Baguiati and the airport. Most of them employ crooners and dancers.

Residents of Baguiati and Lake Town allege the bars often stay open till the early hours. According to rules, bars are to down their shutters by midnight. To stay open beyond midnight, they need to make an additional payment to the excise department and obtain a police clearance.

"In order to hoodwink the police the bars down their shutters at midnight. However, regular customers are allowed to stay till 3am. We often see dancers and crooners leaving with customers in the early hours," a resident of Kaikhali said.

The Supreme Court had in April legalised dancing in bars as long as the dance was not obscene. The order read: "It is better to dance than to go to streets for begging or earning livelihood through unacceptable means. The mindset cannot be to prohibit... we are treating it as a performance of art."