NAGPUR: City police, aided by a Pune-based Non-Government Organization (NGO), raided a brothel in Ganga Jamuna locality on Friday evening. Nine girls, several of them likely to be minors, were rescued in the raid and a brothel-keeper nabbed. Sources said that one of the girls had been rescued for the third time.

Crime branch squad and the NGO team raided the locality after they were tipped-off about possibility of minors being forced into flesh trade. The NGO team had information about the presence of one of the minors, aged around 15 years, in the brothel. She had been twice rescued earlier.

The children welfare committee had earlier released the girl to woman identified as Vaijantibai Kalkhor, who claimed to be her mother. Though she was rescued as a minor a year ago, Lakadganj police had arrested her as a major the following year. A source in the raiding team claimed that Vaijantibai, who has been arrested in the action, had forced the teenager into prostitution despite claiming before the court that she would ensure proper care of the girl while pledging for the bail.

The rescued girls have been sent to the government remand and shelter homes.