NOIDA: A year and a half after a police team under then Gautam Budh Nagar SSP Vaibhav Krishna raided spa centres running in Noida's Sector 18, cops again raided 12 of the same spas and arrested four persons.
While in the raids carried out by police in July 2019, as many as 35 people, including 25 women, were arrested, the Noida police this time sent four female employees found working in one of these centres to a rehabilitation centre, while arresting four men — one of whom is the manager of a particular spa, while the remaining were customers who had reached that centre. However, the owner of the spa remains absconding.
Following the action on the spa centres in July 2019, the city magistrate had sealed the spas under CrPC Section 133 (conditional order for removal of nuisance).
However, most of the spa centres have started functioning again.
With questions being raised on how the centres had been running even after 18 months of a similar crackdown, police said that while two of the spa centres managed to obtain a stay on the sealing from the Allahabad high court and started functioning again. This time, the accused were arrested from Aanandam spa centre being run on the fourth floor of Centre Stage Mall in Sector 18.
DCP (Noida) Rajesh S told TOI that prostitution was found happening in one of the spa centres out of the 12 which were raided late on Wednesday night and “objectionable items like condoms” recovered from here. While four men were arrested from this spa, the four women rescued from here were sent to a rehabilitation centre. “We will send a report to the administration against this spa centre to take necessary action against it,” he said.
Sector 20 SHO Rakesh Kumar Singh said against the remaining of the 11 spa centres too, they will send a report to the administration for violation of the Covid guidelines.
However, the administration says that it will take opinion from the prosecution and following its report, it will recommend action under Section 133 of CrPC to the police. Powers under the section have now been taken away from the DM and handed over to the police commissioner.
When contacted, Gautam Budh Nagar DM Suhas LY said that a report will be sought from the prosecution and the administration will recommend to the police that the spa centre, where prostitution was found happening, be sealed.