A woman has been arrested for running a flying brothel using children, including three of her own.

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The kids — between 8 and 14 years, were groomed and used in the sex racket that operated out of flats in residential localities in the city and the suburbs. The CID has arrested the mother along with her companion, and two others (one of them a notorious trafficker) from a Sonarpur flat. The gang has been running the brothels in old residential neighbourhoods of Tollygunge and Behala, where they rented flats and feigned to be regular families living with children.

The six children, including two 8-year-olds, were rescued by CID's anti-human trafficking unit (AHTU) and NGO International Justice Mission (IJM). They have been sent to a home run by Sanlaap and will be produced before the Child Welfare Committee.

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The 35-year-old woman has been accused of running the sex racket, which catches the girls very young. Her daughters — aged 8, 9 and 14 — were also used for prostitution, police said. They also arrested her companion Abhishek Saha, Anil Bhowmik who is known to be a trafficker and was arrested in three other similar cases earlier, and Mumbai-based Santosh Lanchekar, who is allegedly involved in the racket.

Sarbari Bhattacharya, officer-in-charge, AHTU, CID, tells, "This is a rare case where a mother herself has used her kids for prostitution."

Officials revealed the rates of the younger children were higher. The woman and her accomplices have been charged with letting a string of customers sexually abuse the children and exposing them to men who had complete and unfettered access to the flats. Multiple charges have been slapped on the four arrested.

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Saji Philip, director of the operation, IJM, which is a global human rights organisation working for victims of violence, said, "This incident shows that children can't be safe with even their mothers."

The rescue operation was conducted till late last Wednesday. Madhusudhan Nath, deputy superintendent (special), AHTU, CID, said, "We closed in on the location around 4 pm on Wednesday in an operation spanning several hours and rescued five girls at first." While gathering evidence and interrogating the mother and her companion, the team got word that another young girl was on way to the apartment.

CID then mobilised to intercept the sixth victim and her escort. The escort accompanying this girl tuned out to be Bhowmik. The sixth victim is 13 years old; police say she has been abused for a month and taken to several places in India., even as far as Jaipur, under the "tutelage of some madam."