Move over GB Road, massage parlours are a new favourite

The hotels in central Delhi’s Paharganj are well-known among backpackers looking for a cheap stay. The streets also display hundreds of posters advertising cheap ‘female to male’  and ‘male to female’ massage services. Apart from service at ‘massage parlours’, they also offer to visit hotel rooms and the customer’s preferred location.

Calls made by the reporter to the advertised phone numbers confirm that the parlours also promote prostitution and offer a range of sexual services.

They are a substitute for those who do not wish to visit the capital’s infamous red light area, the GB Road – Garstin Bastion Road.

In the first call, this reporter claims he is staying at a hotel in Paharganj for a day and would provide his address if a suitable deal was made.

The pimp answeres that would depend on the level of satisfaction that the customer was looking for. He offers ‘complete satisfaction’ by housewives, college students and professional models.

“We provide complete service. Massage, body-to-body and sex, everything is available. You will have to pay Rs 2,500 for a housewife, Rs 3,500 for the college student and Rs 5,000 for a model. Two of them can also be sent on a discount,” says the man at a phone number advertised by Pooja massage parlour.

In the second call, the reporter says he wants to visit the massage parlour. He is told to meet a man named Raja near Imperial theatre in Paharganj.

“We will provide hygienic and English speaking girls at Rs 3,000-4,000 an hour in air-conditioned rooms,” the pimp says.

Such advertisements can also be seen in newspapers. But to avoid the attention of police, they claim to be looking to hire men and women for massage parlours which provide services to NRIs and “high-class men and women”.

A 20-year-old youth  who regularly puts up posters advertising massage service in Paharganj, tells Deccan Herald that he has been associated with a parlour operator whom he met while working with a multinational company in west Delhi’s Janakpuri.

The man used to work as a sales executive and part-time with a massage parlour.
“Looking at the money involved in the illegal business, he left the job and started his own massage parlour. He now has a good business with clients from hotels in Paharganj,” the boy says.

He gets paid to put up the posters and covers the area allocated to him in about two hours.

“I get one rupee per poster and end up earning Rs 300 to cover an area. People do notice these advertisements as I have seen men and even women laughing while I put up the posters,” he adds. 

According to Delhi Police, there are at least 500 ‘sex parlours’ operating as massage parlours in the capital and that they get frequent complaints about such parlours.

“The owners change their phone numbers frequently and keep shifting shop from one rented premises to another,” says Deputy Commissioner of Police (Central) Alok Kumar.
Some monthys back, two television journalists carried out a sting operation on a high-profile flesh trade racket run in top hotels in the capital.

They went, posing as customers, to a hotel in Connaught Circus G-Block after a man offered them models over the phone. He asked for Rs 17,000 and said that it would include hotel bills.

“The pimp told us to reach the hotel and pay Rs 9,500 at the check-in counter. We then went to room number 216, where a woman arrived after a while,” one of the reporters tells Deccan Herald.

They paid her Rs 7,500, and when they asked for ‘extra-time’, the woman asked them to pay another Rs 6,000 to extend the original deal.

The television crew had also informed police which led to the arrest of the sex worker and a pimp.  They were charged under Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act.

The pimp usually takes 60 per cent of the money paid by customers, while the remaining amount goes to the sex worker.