Beware! Touching bar dancers is now a punishable offence in Maharashtra

Mumbai, Mar 30: In a move to ensure safety of dance bar girls, Maharashtra Government in its new draft dance bar regulation bill has proposed some stringent measures.

The draft has proposed that making indecent behaviour, touching, showering money or coins on dancers will be a punishable offence.

As per reports, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, decided in a meeting at Vidhan Bhavan that such an act would be considered a cognisable and non-bailable offence. A provision for six-months imprisonment and/or a penalty of Rs 50,000 would be imposed on offenders.

According to the Government's draft, all dance bars will be allowed to stay open only till 11:30 pm and violators will be liable to imprisonment up to 5 years and a fine of up to Rs 25 lakh.

The dance bars are bound to install CCTV cameras both inside and outside the bar.

Earlier on March 16, in the wake of Supreme Court order on resumption of dance bars in Maharashtra, the state government granted licences to owners of four such bars.

The licences were granted the other day in view of the recent apex court order directing the state government to issue licences to dance bars, complying with the modified conditions.

The Supreme Court had on March 2 rejected certain suggestions like providing live CCTV footage to police of performances in the dance bars and asked the state government to grant licences to owners within 10 days after they comply with the modified guidelines.

The state government had in 2005 banned dance bars in Mumbai and elsewhere in Maharashtra. Nearly 1500 bars across the state had employed more than 75,000 women dancers.

OneIndia News