According to senior police officials, social workers and drug rehabilitation-workers, though the Chakla Bazaar area of Muglisara is a hub of criminal activity, descriptions of it being the hot-bed of the drug and flesh trade are ``deliberately and highly exaggerated''.

Nissar Hussain Jamadar, president of the Chakla Bazaar Hatao Samiti, however, complained in a memorandum to Additional Commissioner C Surendra Prasad last week that a number of illegal activities -- including drug-peddling by Nepali youths -- were ``being carried out freely with the knowledge of the police''.

Samiti member Gulam Mohammed told Express Newsline, ``These Nepali youths live with commercial sex-workers and peddle drugs during the day. Chakla Bazaar has become a haven for criminals; if steps aren't taken soon against them, we'll intensify the agitation''.

While admitting that Chakla Bazaar was a notorious area, PSI H Y Mirza of the Chowk Bazaar police station, however, said that no Nepali youth had ever been picked up for drug-peddling in his jurisdiction. Detection of Crime Bureau PI C M Mudaliar seconded the defence.

A police official familiar with the scene, however, told Express Newsline on condition of anonymity that preliminary investigations revealed that the builder lobby was getting interested in the area. ``A lot of money is at stake and the leaders of these so-called interested bodies are being paid to rake up the issue regularly'', he alleged, adding that the drug business in the city centred around the Limbayat (Mithakhali) area, not Chakla Bazaar, and none of those arrested in this connection were Nepalis.

Officials confirmed the involvement of a few builders and the stake of major business interests, allegedly also in the Chakla Bazaar Hatao Samiti. But they pleaded ignorance about the identity of those builders.

Aruna Thakkar, director of `Parivartan', a centre for rehabilitation for drug addicts, bolstered that contention, saying that though she came to know of drug peddlers and their hang-outs, she had never come across instances of Nepalis in the business.

ACP Prasad has assured the Samiti that he would examine its demands of shutting down the red-light area in the mornings and evenings, when school children pass through the area. ``We have to check the validity of drug-peddling allegation, though it does appear to be exaggerated'', he said.

Incidentally, Mirza said there had been attempts earlier to `reform' the area. ``During Police Commissioner Mankad's time, five years ago, there was a similar intense agitation, but it yielded no results'', he added.