Five arrested, three girls rescued

Periyapatna: Periyapatna Police have busted a flesh trade racket by raiding a lodge and have arrested five persons involved in the illegal racket besides rescuing five girls.

The arrested persons have been identified as Sachitramurthy and Teerthesh of Nelamanga, Nagaraju of Bengaluru, lodge owner Mohan Kumar and his assistant Shivaswamy. The Police had received information that flesh trade was going on at a lodge in Panchavalli in Peryapatna limits and Odanadi activists who got the information confirmed, informed SP Ravi D. Channannavar and Hunsur Dy.SP Harish Pandey.

Following directions from the SP and Dy.SP, the Police, conducted a raid on the lodge on Thursday night and arrested the accused, who tried to escape besides rescuing three girls, all native of West Bengal and sending them to a rehabilitation centre in Mysuru.

The Police have also seized a pistol and a Innova car. A case has been registered at Periyapatna Police Station in this regard.

Inspector H.S. Siddaiah supervised SI Chethan and staff Meerabi, Habibullah Khan, Manjunath, Jayaram and Basavaraju, in the raid operation.