A hotel owner and his wife have been booked after the Odhav Police allegedly unearthed a prostitution racket operating from a budget hotel on Ahmedabad’s SP Ring Road. Five women from different states were rescued during a raid conducted on Sunday evening.
Decoy Operation Leads to Raid
The police raided Hotel King Palace, located on the third floor of Crystal Avenue, after receiving a tip-off that women from outside Gujarat were being brought to the hotel for commercial sexual exploitation.
To verify the information, investigators sent a decoy customer carrying four pre-marked Rs 500 currency notes. According to police, the receptionist accepted the Rs 2,000 and arranged for a woman to meet the decoy customer. Once the transaction was completed, the raiding team entered the hotel and conducted a search.
Five Women Rescued
During the operation, the decoy customer was found in Room No. 508 with one woman. Subsequent searches of other rooms led to the rescue of five women.
Police said the rescued women are natives of Punjab, West Bengal, Maharashtra and Sikkim. Investigators alleged that they had been brought to the hotel for commercial sexual exploitation.
Hotel Owner, Wife Named as Accused
The accused have been identified as hotel owner Rajubhai Rameshbhai Panchal (57) and his wife, Bobby Rajubhai Panchal (39), who allegedly managed the reception and the hotel’s day-to-day operations.
Police alleged that the couple was running the prostitution racket under the cover of a legitimate hotel business for financial gain. The marked Rs 2,000 used in the decoy operation was recovered from the reception counter and seized as evidence.
Probe Widens
Investigators suspect the women were brought to Gujarat through a wider trafficking network and are probing the involvement of agents who may have recruited and transported them.
The rescued women have been shifted to protective custody, while police are investigating how long the alleged racket had been operating and whether any hotel employees or associates were involved.