Sources say Nihar owns the bar along with few other sleeping partners. Three staff members have been arrested and four of the accused including Nihar are wanted in the case.
Home Minister RR Patil’s renewed drive against the dance bars reached the Thackeray clan on Wednesday. Nihar Binda Thackeray, the grandson of Shiv Sena supremo Bal Thackeray was booked, along with six others, under the Prevention of Immoral Trafficking Act (PITA). He was booked following a raid on Sangeet Bar located near Gazdar Bandh area of Santa Cruz (West).
Sources say Nihar owns the bar along with few other sleeping partners. Three staff members have been arrested and four of the accused including Nihar are wanted in the case.
The bar has now been sealed. “Further investigation is on in the case,” said Madhukar Chaudharie, senior police inspector of Santa Cruz police station.
Chaudharie has denied receiving any political pressure in the investigation.
Police officials, based on specific information, went undercover as customers and conducted a recce inside Sangeet bar. There they found bar girls under the disguise of waitresses, indulging in prostitution. Patrons at the bar were given the option of either taking these girls out or hiring rooms kept for this specific purpose on the first floor of the bar. Post the recce, the cops alerted their seniors, who then raided the bar.
The police rescued nine bar girls during the raid. Sources said that only four bar girls are allowed to remain in the bar, after 9.30pm as ‘singers’ till closing time (1.30am). “The remaining five were hidden in a concealed walls, to act as backup when the bar girls on floor got picked up for soliciting,” said a police officer.
RR Patil had recently threatened to take action against the police of the concerned police stations, if bars were found functioning inside their jurisdiction, beyond the stipulated hours.
Nihar is the son of Bal Thackeray’s eldest son Binda Thackeray, who died in a car accident in 1996.
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