A couple, who shot to fame with the controversial Kiss of Love (KoL) event, and three of their associates have been arrested by the Central Crime Branch police on charges of pushing the minor girls into prostitution and human trafficking.
A special CCB team obtained the body warrant from a Kerala court and arrested the five persons. The arrested have been brought to Bengaluru for interrogation on Thursday.
The suspects have been identified as Rahul PS, a native of Kollam, his wife Reshmi R Nair of Palakkad, the couple associated with the KoL, and Abdul Khadr, a resident of Kasargod, Ashiqu of Palakkad and Lineesh Mathew, a resident of Lingarajpuram, Bengaluru.
Lineesh, a woman, acted as the agent for the above mentioned quartet and supplied them the minor girls while the couple and two others pushed the girls into flesh trade, said the police.
The suspects had earlier been arrested by the Kerala police, last month, for their involvement in an online sex racket in Kochi. Rahul Pasupalan, supplied girls, including minors to customers while his wife Rashmi Nair, acted as an agent and also offered sexual services to the solicitors.
Two complaints were lodged with the Commercial Street police station in 2012 against one of the suspects for pushing the minor girls into the flesh trade. Recently, one of the minor girls appeared before the magistrate and made a statement that she was pushed into the prostitution by the couple and three of their associates. She narrated how the agent lured her and took her into Kerala and how the four others repeatedly used her for prostitution, said the police.
“We took up a case and constituted a team which went to Kerala. Our team obtained the body warrant of the court there, arrested the five and brought them to Bengaluru,” Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime) Chandrashekhar told Deccan Herald.
The police would question them to ascertain the number of minor girls pushed into the flesh trade and other details.
Rahul and Rashmi shot to international fame in November last year after their arrest at Marine Drive in Kochi during the KoL protest, organised against moral policing.
They have been booked under IPC Sections 376 (rape), 370 (buying or disposing of any person as a slave), 370A (exploitation of a trafficked person), 120B (criminal conspiracy), and under Sections 3, 4, 5 and 7 of the Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act that deal with prostitution and under provisions of Pocso Act.