Agarwal, who was picked up from Mumbai Central, has been charged under Prevention of Immoral Traffic Acts 1996 (PITA) and has been remanded in the custody of Nagpada police till May 3, confirmed Senior Inspector Rafiq Sheikh.

``Agarwal could well be the biggest pimp in the city if the disclosures made by him are anything to go by,'' Senior Inspector at V P Road police station, Suresh Jadhav told Express Newsline. Agarwal has told police that he had on his rolls actresses, models, air-hostesses, nurses, college girls and even state government employees. In fact, a sourcesaid, he told police that he represented 200-odd women from Mantralaya alone. Senior officers, however, believe this could be an inflated figure.

The arrangement between Agarwal and the women (and a few men too) he represented was simple. While the women decided their rate, Agarwal retained 25 per cent of it as service charge. His responsibility was to play the middle-man between the prostitute and her customer and also fix-up hotel rooms. A senior police officer said that by a conservative estimate Agarwal's turnover was around Rs 75 lakh a day. And his net income between Rs 4 lakh a day.

Agarwal told investigators that he never forced anybody into the business and that girls themselves contacted him and wished to get registered. What he actually did was to unite the two parties in a cosy hotel room, often in the suburbs.

Operating from a first-floor dingy room at Joshi Building near Simplex Compound near Grant Road Station, Agarwal did most of the business over the telephone. He paid a whopping Rs15,000 as monthly rent for the premises.

He was assisted in the business by his partner Soni Sawla, who also has been arrested. His other associates identified as Bashir, Karim and Ramu, who were paid around Rs 3,000 per day, used to escort girls to their hotel rooms.

Agarwal has named at least a dozen shady hotels where the girls usually entertained their customers. Most of the hotels are located in the western suburbs, particularly in Khar-Juhu area. Some taxi drivers were also on his pay-list and they were either used for luring customers for a commission or for transporting the girls to their destinations.

Agarwal told police that some men too were enlisted with him and they operated from a pick-up spot near Haji Ali junction. These men usually tied a handkerchief around their right hand, which was a sign of ``availability.'' Their customers were wealthy women from upmarket localities in the neighbourhood.