The Criminal Investigation Department (CID) arrested 15 persons from a hotel at Shyampur in Howrah on charges of running a sleaze racket.
Acting on a tip-off, a team comprising officers from CID conducted a raid posing as prospective customers. They searched the hotel and arrested 15 persons including five women and a minor girl.
The owner, manager and two employees of the hotel were also arrested.
An officer of the CID said they came to know after further investigation that the owner of the hotel was also involved in women trafficking. Two youth were arrested from the hotel on July 12 on charges of trafficking women.
The officers also spoke to some local people and came to know that the racket had been running in the area for the past eight to ten days.
The investigating officers suspect that the prime accused was involved in inter-state human trafficking racket and would interrogate him to get information about other members of the racket or the counterparts in other states.
It may be mentioned that the CID had arrested the kingpin of a human trafficking racket from South 24 Parganas a few months ago.
The investigating agency is looking into the possibility of the connection between the accused and the kingpin who was arrested from South 24 Parganas.
It would be a major breakthrough if the police find any connection between them in a face-to-face interrogation of both of them that might help the CID officers get more information in this connection. Meanwhile, the officers also said that they have received some inputs that will help them in the probe.