Sex racket busted, 24 minor girls rescued in Orissa

Bhubaneshwar, Sep 13 (ANI): Twenty-five minor girls were rescued from an orphanage by police here on Saturday night during a raid.

The Orissa police, later, claimed to have busted a group involved in sexual exploitation of the rescued girls.

According to police, caretaker of the orphanage and his friends used to sexually exploiting the minor girls.

Police seized a large number of pornographic CDs, magazines, video cameras and other electronic gadgets from the orphanage

The orphanage Biju Pattnaik Destitute Home was run by Basanti Trust, which is also involved in another sex racket run under the guise of a marriage bureau.

Police have arrested Managing Trustee of Basanti Trust, Byomkesh Tripathy.

Tripathy, however, dismissed all the allegations against him by terming them as a conspiracy hatched to humiliate him.

"I am not that type of man. Actually this is the best way of implicating a person. It's false that I have been sexually assaulting small children. I have never ever done anything like this," Tripathy said.

Utkal Das, the Inspector in-charge refused to disclose details of the case, and said that he would give his statement at the right time and right place.

Though local residents near the orphanage had been apprehensive about such illegal incidents in their locality and even complained against these to the police several times, but it cane to the police after a runaway girl from orphanage complained of being harassed.

The inmates of the orphanage alleged that the Managing Trustee showed them nude pictures forcefully.

"He was showing us nude photos and obscene movies through TV. When we tried to oppose, he said, we were living under due to his mercy," said Neeta De, a minor orphaned girl victim.

Meanwhile, the rescued girls have been shifted to another orphanage 'Child Line' in the old town of Bhubaneswar while further investigations are in progress. (ANI)