Post News Network
Bhubaneswar: Sunil Meher, who is alleged to be running the high-profile sex rackets in the city for more than six years, was arrested Thursday morning from Kolkata airport by sleuths of the Quick Action Team (QAT) of commissionerate police.
Meher has nine cases of human trafficking pending against him in various police stations of the city. In three such cases, court warrants have been issued against him.
In one of the three cases, Meher is accused of forcing a Krgyz woman who was on a tourist visa into prostitution. The racket was busted from an apartment at IRC village recently March 23 and the woman was rescued. Meher’s aide Somesh Panda was arrested in the case.
Panda worked at the instruction of Meher, the woman told the court, adding that she had met him in Kolkata. She alleged that Meher had forced her to into prostitution.
Police commissioner YB Khurania said a team of QAT was dispatched Wednesday night to Kolkata after commissionerate police got a tip-off about Meher’s arrival in Kolkata from Ahmedabad by a GoAir flight.
“Meher was arrested around 9.30 am. We are investigating his involvement in the previous cases,” Khurania said.
Meher had been absconding since July 2015 after his name came up after a sex racket was busted at a guest house wherein a model was also rescued. Since then, Meher had allegedly been running the sex racket from Kolkata, police sources said.
Meher has earlier been arrested four times by QAT and a total of seven times by the commissionerate police.
However, every time he has managed to come out on bail and go absconding. Meher was also arrested by Kolkata police on similar charges but that time too he was released on bail.
Meher, a native of Sambalpur, had come to Bhubaneswar in 2003, police sources said. Initially, he worked at a bar where his monthly salary was `1,500. Later, he left the job and started a sex racket in the city.
Meher has six brothers and one sister. He studied at an English medium school in Berhampur and did Intermediate in arts. His wife left him after she learnt about his involvement in flesh trade. They have a 12-year-old son who lives with the mother, police sources said.
Meher is understood to know several languages, including Russian.
