UP lawmaker arrested in Goa dance bar raid

A sitting Samajwadi Party legislator from Uttar Pradesh has been arrested in a raid on a dance bar here, police said Tuesday.

Deputy Superintendent of Police Mahesh Gaonkar said that one of the six people arrested during the raid on a dance bar illegally operating here was Mahendra Singh, a legislator from Sitapur in Uttar Pradesh.

"We discovered this during their interrogation. We have confirmed it with the UP government," Gaonkar said.

Among the six people arrested arrested, three including Singh hail from UP. The two others were identified as Ajay and Dharmendra Prasad. Two Nepali nationals - Komal Thapa and Sanjeev Sah - were also arrested, the police official said.

The six women who were rescued from the dance bar by the police Tuesday have been send to a state-run women's home.

The raid comes more than a week after Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar announced in his Independence Day address that his government was against dance bars.

Before the chief minister's statement, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was caught in a bind after party vice president Wilfred Mesquita had given a thumbs up to dance bars in the state.