Indian police say dance bar raids will intensify

Indian police today warned that drink licences of bars would be cancelled if raids uncovered dancing girls.

More than 200 people, including nearly 100 dancing girls, were arrested over the past two nights, more than a week after a ban on Mumbai’s famous dance bars came into effect.

There were some 700 dance bars in Mumbai (formerly Bombay) and 650 in the rest of western Maharashtra state employing more than 75,000 dance girls.

The state government announced the ban in April on grounds the bars corrupted the young. Mumbai police have been involved in nightly raids on the bars.

“If dancing girls are found during a second raid, the licence of the bar will be cancelled," said deputy commissioner of police Ravindra Sengaonkar.