Police will now carry out random crackdowns on city hotels that allow guests with ID proofs such as Aadhaar bearing local addresses.

This move follows the recovery of teenagers, including minor boys and girls, from three hotels in Sakchi recently. All were students from Jamshedpur and had allegedly booked hotel rooms for sex at a time they were supposed to be at their tuition classes, police said. All had booked hotel rooms via a popular app.

City SP Prabhat Kumar said OCs of all thanas across the city had been instructed to carry out random searches at hotels and lodgings where youngsters book rooms to stay for brief periods. “We have decided to carry out random searches at hotels where youngsters tend to come with an ulterior motive. If any illegal work involving youngsters is found, the hotel management concerned will be taken to task,” the city SP said.

The discovery that sparked this furore was made on the evening of Thursday, January 31, when Sakchi police got wind that a minor girl had been lured by a goon to go to a hotel with him. A team led by Sakchi OC Rajiv Kumar did not find the goon in question, but instead discovered four teenage couples holed up “in an objectionable state” at three hotels at Sakchi’s Kalimati Road.

Sakchi OC Kumar said probe revealed the boyfriends in these cases had booked hotel rooms via an app using “fabricated IDs”, but did not divulge how. During interrogation, the teens also confessed they came to the hotels but had told their parents they were going to their coaching classes.

As most of the eight youngsters were minor, the police released them after calling in their parents to Sakchi thana. But police warned the teens that they would be arrested next time.

“Now, we are ensuring no hotel in Sakchi area books anyone without Aadhaar, and if a person is found to be a local, he or she would be refused accommodation,” the OC said. Random checks would be done across all hotels across the city.