The recent midnight raid at the house of a few African women in Delhi’s Khirki extension area by state law minister Somnath Bharti has caused widespread outrage. Bharti alleged there was a thriving prostitution and drug racket in that house and insisted on a raid without a search warrant. While the illegal nature of the minister’s act is beyond doubt — he could be imprisoned for a year for house trespassing — legal experts point out that the incident is also a violation of the Immoral Traffic Prevention Act (ITPA), 1986.
“Even though it is not yet proven if the women were prostitutes, the raid clearly brought out the prevailing mindset that prostitutes may be harassed at will because they are considered evil for society. It is shocking that even the law minister didn’t know that what he was doing was a violation of the existing prostitution law,” says Supreme Court advocate K.T.S. Tulsi. Continue Reading.
