Prostitutes, GRP and Santacruz police working in tandem to allow prostitution to flourish and to extort money from innocent commuters. In a nighttime operation, mid-day exposes the racket

Probably the perfect example of a police-crook nexus — and this, played out on a very public skywalk at Santacruz railway station.



The GRP room under the bridge at Santacruz station platform where commuters are randomly caught, holed in, and intimidated to cough up cash; mid-day snapped a group of sex workers going about their business until the police arrived, only to shrug that they could do little. Pics/Shadab Khan

Prostitutes, the Government Railway Police (GRP) and the Santacruz police working in tandem to allow prostitution to flourish and to extort money from innocent commuters. In a nighttime operation, mid-day, on Wednesday, exposes the racket that has been operating for the past few months.

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10 pm: A group of close to 40 sex workers gathered on the skywalk that connects the Santacruz railway bridge in the west to SV Road. The skywalk is also connected to the public bridge that ends on the Western Express Highway in the east.

1 am: Nothing out of the ordinary happens till the time trains ply. But around 1 am, mid-day spotted the first bunch of GRP personnel walking past the women. Instead of questioning them, some went past smiling at the women, while a few stopped to chat with them. This stretch has no lights. And right under it is a beat chowkie of Santacruz police station.

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Graphic/Ravi Jadhav

1.30 am: We spotted the GRP personnel hauling several youngsters from the skywalk into the chowkie room below the bridge. The chowkie has a small room used by the railway police at the extreme south-bound end of the railway platform. The six men were taken into the room, which was then locked from the inside.

1.45 am: While that was going on, the sex workers on the skywalk suddenly started running towards the public bridge.

They crossed the bridge and moved to the east side. Wonder why? The west side of the skywalk falls under Santacruz police’s jurisdiction, while the east comes under the Vakola police.

Four constables, including one woman, arrived on the skywalk soon after. They blew their police whistles and thwacked the bars of the skywalk with their batons as is their practice while on patrol.

But here, it was a clear warning that announced their arrival to anyone who cared to listen. Proof of this arrived when they spotted the sex workers skipping to the east side but did nothing.

They did, however, question us about what we were doing on the bridge. When we told them we were from mid-day, they told us to leave the spot immediately. One constable even menacingly advised us: “The place is not safe. There are so many prostitutes on the bridge. They take you to a lodge and then rob you. If you don’t give them money they threaten you with a rape case.”

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When we pointed to the sex workers lounging on the east side and asked them if they were not going to question them, the constables shrugged it off, saying it was not their jurisdiction.

We then asked if they could at least call the Vakola police. The constables walked away, again warning us that it was not safe for us to stay there. The last of them, from the Santacruz police, said, “We are not social service branch cops and we can’t do anything as it is not our jurisdiction.”

1.55 am: The sex workers returned to the west, and get back to business.

2.30 am: Around 30 minutes later, we were still waiting for the six youngsters to emerge from the GRP room. A few cops outside the room noticed us. Some time later, two young men left the room. We waited for them to alight from the skywalk on SV Road.

When we reached them, the first man said, “I work in a hotel and earn Rs 14,000 a month. I was waiting at the skywalk as one of my friends was coming to collect Rs 7,000 I had borrowed from him for my mother’s operation last week. As I was speaking on the phone, the cops just came and took me into the police room on the platform.”

At this point, he started crying. “They told me they would frame me in a prostitution case. They said they would conduct a medical test on me and take me to court. They also told me that they will tell my family about it and defame me. I begged them to let me go and explained that I was not approaching those sex workers and was in fact waiting for my friend. But, they continued to threaten me. They then took all the money I had.”

We asked the two to file a complaint of extortion against the cops, assuring them that we would accompany them.

But they refused our help, saying, “If we complain, they will somehow put the blame on us. They will cook up a story and inform our family.” Without money to go home, the two decided to walk all the way.

3.30 am: The sex workers began to leave. A Santacruz resident whom we bumped into later, said, “They are regulars on the skywalk for many months now. Police take money from them to turn a blind eye.” Another resident said, “It looks bad that at such a busy station and residential area such a sex racket is operating with the approval of the cops. DCP (zone 9) Satyanarayan Choudhary, under whom Santacruz police station falls, told us to speak to the senior Santacruz police inspector.