Hyderabad: A prostitution racket was busted under the Abids police station limits in Hyderabad on Thursday. Acting on specific inputs, South Zone Task Force police conducted a raid on a hotel in Abids area and arrested several girls and men including the organiser Ramnagar Akhil Paheliwan, also known as, Saluvadi Akhilesh, who was involved in the prostitution business.

During the raid on Fortune Hotel near Big Bazar, 16 girls, six male customers and two organisers were detained by the police. Akhil Paheliwan, who owns the hotel, was running the prostitution business in the downtown area. The other detained persons have been identified as Pakkala Raghupathi, Abhishek Bati, Keshav Vyas, Khalid and Santosh.

The police found that the main accused Akhil Paheliwan had contact numbers of national and international organisers of prostitution business on his phone. He would make between 20-30 phone calls to these people. During its investigation, the police found that the detained girls who were trafficked from West Bengal were involved in the prostitution business for the last few weeks. The police suspected that Akhil was supplying girls to Telugu film personalities.