Thiruvananthapuram, Keralam DGP Ravada A Chandrasekhar on Wednesday said all district police chiefs had been directed to conduct intelligence-based operations against spas suspected of illegal activities.
The police chief also spoke about ‘Samraksha’, a state-level voluntary blood donation initiative launched on Police Commemoration Day to honour police personnel who died in the line of duty. The girl’s maternal aunt and her husband were subsequently taken into custody by the police in Andhra Pradesh. Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of a blood donation camp organised here on the occasion of Police Commemoration Day, Chandrasekhar said an investigation was underway into the alleged sexual assault of a 16-year-old girl from Andhra Pradesh at a spa in Kovalam.
He said the police were treating the matter very seriously and had ordered stringent action against spas involved in illegal activities to prevent similar incidents. The police chief said intelligence-based operations would be conducted at the district level to identify spas engaged in illegal activities. On the Kovalam spa case, Chandrasekhar said the police hoped to uncover all aspects of the case and that provisions of the anti-human trafficking law had been invoked.
A health inspector with the Thiruvananthapuram Corporation was arrested on Tuesday in connection with the case, which is being investigated by a nine-member Special Investigation Team .
