Social workers ‘help bust vice racket’

The timely involvement of social workers affiliated to Indian Community Relief Fund Bahrain (ICRF) and Indian Embassy officials helped the police bust a vice racket yesterday. Sources said the members of the prostitution racket were arrested after a victim alerted a social worker, who in turn informed the Indian Embassy and the CID Department.

According to sources, the victim had only arrived in the Kingdom yesterday morning on a visit visa after being invited by a friend of her, who was part of the racket. “She came to the Kingdom with an aim to take up an appropriate job to support the family back home. To her good luck, she had obtained a SIM card at the airport itself,” sources said.

Within a few hours of her arrival, the victim is said to have realised that she had been trapped to be part of a forced prostitution ring. “The victim’s friend was part of the vice ring. She was asked to give a replacement to be relieved from the network and she successfully trapped her friend for her benefit,” the sources said.

The victim was initially taken to a beauty parlour in Manama, where she managed to obtain the contact numbers of a few social workers before alerting them, the sources said. Police have begun a thorough probe into the incident. The Interior Ministry has been stepping up its efforts to nab the members of vice network while many suspects have been sentenced or prosecuted.