Police-run prostitution thrives in city

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What comes to your mind when you think of a police officer? Crime fighting, bribery, meagre salaries, corruption, pot bellies, and case delays are the usual answers. Now we can add part-time pimping to that image.

Pakistan Today has learnt that some police officers working in various police stations across the six divisions of the metropolis engage in pimping and run brothels as a part time job after they are done with their eight hours of ‘public service’.

According to police sources, there has been a significant rise in the number of brothels in the city. As many as 10,000 local and foreign prostitutes work in around 600 large scale brothels under the patronage of the local police, sources day. “From senior police officials to constables in the police stations, all are linked to this booming business which earns millions for all. The local police patronise brothels being operated in their precincts and charge monthly remunerations for allowing the pimps to run their business in peace,” said a police official, seeking anonymity.

Lucky Master, a pimp, told Pakistan Today that some cops worked as pimps after official duty hours. “Policemen have established booking offices and have hired men and women as recruiting and sales agents who to manage their prostitution network, it has been learnt. Clients are shown pictures of prostitutes and are offered various packages, including the availability of hashish, liquor, and hotel rooms. The girls are supplied both within the city as well as outside to those willing to pay hefty amounts to the men in black,” Lucky Master said.

However, he lamented that he had been backstabbed by the police officers many times. “It is true that we cannot work without the help of the police but it is unfair on their part that first they take our bribes and then they raid our dens. Even worse, they have joined the business and are now our competitors in the market with their own set of local and foreign girls with the added advantage of state-sponsored protection,” he added.

Similarly, a woman who runs a brothel in Sabzazar, speaking to Pakistan Today said, “These pimps in police uniforms treat us recklessly for running our brothels. They take money from us and then deceive us by shutting our business down when they want to, in order to maintain their hegemony in their prostitution business.”

“We are looked down upon in society for running this business which the society deems immoral, yet society itself partakes in it,” she added. “Unsurprisingly, no one raises a finger against policemen who openly deal in the sale and purchase of lust. The cops get their money, the citizens get their pleasure, and we get all the blame.”

According to sources in an intelligence agency, Model Town Division has the most of these police-run brothels, numbered at 160, while the number of brothels in Saddar Division and City Division are 140 and 100, respectively. Another 100 can be found in Iqbal Town Division, 60 in Cantt Division and more than 50 in Civil Lines Division.

Most of the brothels are being run in the city under the guise of guest houses, the sources added.

“The hotel owners deliver monthly payments to the lower staff of local police stations, who take their cut and deliver the rest to the station house officers (SHO), who then pay off their SPs for allowing them to continue with their work unhindered,” police sources told Pakistan Today. They further said that the SHOs, in connivance with the pimps and hotel/ guest house owners, often raid the brothels to show off their excellent police work to their superiors and the media. After their performance has been noted, the policemen let the accused go.

After all, they are sensible enough not to kill the geese laying golden eggs.

1 COMMENT

  1. Yes, I fully agree and any other resident of Lahore would also agree that Police runs such dens, even the roadside call girls are sometimes sisters of policemen and anyone picking them up has to face the wrath of police men, who instead of doing their duties, are more interested in blackmailing people to extort money mostly from students. In Islamabad, especially at entry to Murree Express-way these black pigs harass tourists. Once they threw all our luggage and sniffed each of our bottle of soft drinks in a big to find something to put us in trouble. Finally they found a slingshot in our back backs and kept us there until we proved our actual identities. May Allah's wrath be upon Punjab Police, pigs clad in black.

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