Gang extorting prostitution dens lands in police net

The arrested have been identified as Rudrajith, a resident of Kanakapura road, Ravi Chandra, a resident of J.P. Nagar, Satish, a resident of Chikka Kammanahalli, and Pratap, Jitendra and Muniyappa, both residents of Bannerghatta. They claimed to be members of the Karnataka Kavalu Sena. Rudrajeet is a Kannada actor, whose latest venture Jailu Dinagalu (Days in Jail) is yet to be released.

The modus operandi of the gang was to gather information about places of flesh trade, make a visit and claim that they are the members of KKS, before extorting the customers and pimps. They would also claim to be from different media organisations. If the victims failed to pay money, the gang would threaten to make videos and air them on news channels. Their vehicles had “Press” stickers on them.

The gang ran out of luck on Friday night after an alert citizen tipped off the police when the gang members went to a house in Tavarekere and tried to use the same modus operandi. The police rushed to the spot and arrested the gang members. Also, three women, two from Kolkata and one from Chennai, were rescued and pimp Harish was arrested.

A week ago, the six extorted around Rs 1.2 lakh from another prostitution den and the case had been registered at the JP Nagar police station. “We are interrogating the accused to find out if they were involved in similar cases. We are verifying if KKS is a registered organisation,” a senior police officer said.