Illegal activities at massage centres run unabated in Hyderabad

Run under the guise of spa and wellness centres, several of these parlours are nothing but a cover for prostitution, say cops

Hyderabad: Despite the efforts of the police to put a check on illegal activities in the massage parlours that dot the commercial hubs and residential areas of the city, these facilities most of them in the guise of spa and wellness centres continue to run unabated.

Such spa and massage centres have been carrying out their activities in several areas including the commercial areas of Banjara Hills Road No. 12, Road No 10, Road No 1, Jubilee Hills Road No 36, Madhapur, Hitec City, Raidurgam, Punjagutta, Raj Bhavan Road, and Begumpet among others, according to the available information on online advertisements portals.

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Several of these parlours, according to the police officials, who previously worked with the Anti-Human Trafficking Units (AHTUs), are nothing but a cover for prostitution. “Women are lured into massage therapy and later pushed into prostitution. The management hires the women at a salary between Rs 20,000 and Rs 25,000 a month. They then push the victims into prostitution and collect a part of the money thus earned as commission,” said an official who worked with one of the AHTU units.

These organisers obtain licenses from the Department of Labour for carrying out their activities under the category ‘spa and wellness centre’. “In fact, they show us the certificate to validate their work. In several cases we also found these organisers operating from ‘benami’ centres,” said an official of Hyderabad Police.

The network of operators also brings in the victim women as massage therapists from the northern and northeastern States. Another official said the shady activities are carried out through a chain of brokers who trap the vulnerable victims and move them to different cities on the pretext of a job.

Police officials who cracked such networks point out that the women are provided some basic training in various massage therapies in certified centres and then put on the job. To cover up their illegal business, a certificate of massage therapist is found nailed on the wall in these centres, he added.