Police and Haryana women’s welfare authorities said on Saturday (September 19) that they have found prima facie evidence of illegal sex work in at least eight “wellness centres” operating in a mall in Gurugram, and rescued 30 women during an overnight raid at the premises.The operation — a massive six-hour joint raid carried out by the Haryana State Commission for Women and Gurugram Police — was carried out after about 100 people working in the commercial complex flagged alleged illicit activities being carried out under the guise of wellness parlours, according to Usha Priyadarshi, chairperson of the Haryana State Commission for Women.A Gurugram Police officer said the operation began at 10 pm on Friday. Nearly 100 police personnel, including 20 Inspectors and Sub-inspectors, moved in alongside teams led by Priyadarshi and an executive Duty Magistrate. They cordoned off floors and began simultaneous inspections across 18 “wellness centres” on the premises.By the time the operation concluded at 3 am on Saturday, the teams had found prima facie evidence of illegal sex work across at least eight of these 18 centres, the officer said.According to this officer, 30 women, including three minors, were rescued, and 20 men operating these centres were rounded up. Electronic and documentary material was impounded, the officer said.“We took collective action based on roughly 100 complaints from people working in the mall, including doctors, who observed what was happening, and who had been rebuked by spa staff when they intervened,” Priyadarshi told The Indian Express.This was the “biggest raid of its kind in Haryana”, she said.Story continues below this adThe complainants had raised “serious concerns about the safety of the environment, particularly for young women and families visiting the mall”, Priyadarshi said. “After conducting reccees over two days, we coordinated with the police [to carry out the raid],” she added.Priyadarshi said the setup inside the centres did not resemble that of standard wellness parlours.“Inside each centre, there were three to four partitioned rooms that were being rented out by the hour. We found alcohol, beedis, cigarettes, and even petrol canisters stored on the premises,” she said.Gurugram Police said that the women who were rescued from these centres were being treated as victims under anti-trafficking protocols.Story continues below this ad“Objectionable materials, including contraceptives, petrol, and digital video recorders (DVRs), were recovered, indicating that illicit commercial activities were operating behind the façade of massage parlours,” Abhilaksh Joshi, ACP (Headquarters-I) and the designated Special Police Officer under the Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act, who supervised the raid, said.“The women are considered victims in such cases; we do not arrest them. But we are recording their background details to map the recruitment chain. The men found on the premises are being actively questioned,” Joshi said.Priyadarshi said that during preliminary questioning, some of the women and girls, who are from rural areas, said they had been coerced into the illicit trade. Others said they were in extreme financial distress, Priyadarshi said.While preliminary search proceedings and spot documentations were executed under the supervision of ACP Joshi as the designated Special Police Officer, formal criminal proceedings and further investigation have been transferred to the Kherki Daula police station to track down the alleged kingpins and the property leaseholders, police said.