Brickfields: Vice fortress
BRICKFIELDS: WHAT is it about Brickfields that is so hard to rid it of its vice activities?
Despite continuous and concerted efforts by the authorities to shut them down, the syndicates brazenly carry on with their "business" and the area stubbornly remains a stronghold for prostitution and drug activities.
A six-hour long observation by The Malay Mail team from 6.30pm yesterday showed the "red light" area in Jalan Thambypillai to be very much alive and kicking.
From what we saw, there are at least 10 vice dens operating along the shady street. Most of them are housed in two-storey shoplots.
Two brothels along Jalan Tun Sambanthan 4 were operating as well, even in broad daylight.
Outside each brothel entrance, at least two men stood guard.
"Those are the pimps," said Aru, a 48-year-old petty trader when our reporter approached him. The pimps, mostly elderly men, were armed with walkie-talkies.
It was around dusk when one of the so-called pimps spotted our photographer stealing some shots of the place.
He immediately spoke into his walkie-talkie.
"The pimps are clearly visible, night and day," said Aru.
"Every day, they would be sitting on plastic stools right in front of the dens. They make their presence felt as early as 3pm and the vice dens would continue operations up to 4am."
The pimps know no fear, he said. They would shout out to any able-bodied male walking along.
Last year, it was reported that Deputy Federal Territories and Urban Wellbeing Minister Datuk M. Saravanan had experienced this himself when he visited the area.
Prior to Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's visit here, Saravanan had carried out a spot check. Just walking along, he had received more than five offers from pimps and prostitutes within a half-hour period.
Saravanan has been adamant in cleaning up Little India, as Brickfields is known, to the extent until he received a death threat.
"The pimps do not discriminate their potential customers at all," said Vignesh, a student who lives on Jalan Rozario.
"They don't care how old you are or where you're from. Too many times I've seen them yell: 'leng chai, masuk lah. You mau India? Melayu? Cina? Semua ada! Main best punya! One-way ada, two-way pun ada! RM30 ada, RM50 pun ada!" said the 23-year-old. (handsome guy, come in. You want Indian? Malay? Chinese? We have it all! The sex is good! We have 'one-way' and 'two-way', RM30 and RM50!)
It was learnt that "one-way" means to only have sexual intercourse while "two-way" is inclusive of oral sex.
Yesterday, we observed that men, mostly in their 40s, were seen entering and exiting the brothels in groups of twos and threes. This was around 7pm onwards.
People walked nonchalantly past the vice dens, as if they were so used to it.
It was only close to midnight when we spotted a police van patrolling the area. There were two cops in the vehicle but they didn't stop anywhere.
We learnt from the locals that "peak hours" for vice activities would be from 1am to 3am. This time, there would be a lot of people, mostly men and sometimes foreigners from India and Bangladesh, crowding in front of the dens.
This is also the time when traders would come out to sell sexual enhancement products such as pills, ointments and even devices. The most popular drugs traded in the area are usually syabu and Eramin 5 pills.
Red light shines bright
"While the drug pushers and traders are usually Malaysians, I believe some of them are foreigners, based on the language and dialect they speak," said Vignesh.
Another local, who only wished to be known as John, said he has been living there for almost a decade and "nothing has changed since the day I moved here".
"Apart from some restaurants changing management and the roads changing from two-way to one-way, everything else is the same. Brickfields has always been infested with prostitutes, drug addicts and pimps for as long as I've been here.
"Raids are being carried out now and then but the vice dens would reopen soon after. Usually, after a raid, the place would close for about one to two weeks. The longest that I've seen the dens closed is for a month. This was sometime last year after the authorities carried out a major crackdown here," said John.
"There are times when I see some of the vice dens closed. From this, I know a raid is coming. I don't know how they get tip offs." - MalayMail