Siddhartha Gupta, New Delhi: From the dingy alleys of national capital to the bylanes of Kolkata’s red-light district, underage prostitution and child trafficking rackets are thriving and pimps are making a quick buck at the expense of minor girls.

While Delhi is fast gaining the dubious distinction as a hub of underage prostitution racket, the trail begins in West Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand and Nepal.

Minor girls are being pimped as "virgins" for huge prices to customers from across India and while the experts say the alarming trend is common to most metro cities, Delhi's reputation seems to have taken the severest beating.

A CNN-IBN Special Investigation Team went undercover, posing as customers, traveled with pimps from Delhi to Kolkata and caught child traffickers putting young minor girls on sale without a care for the law.

The journey began in Delhi.

Delhi: Not Virgin Territory

The first girl on offer was Payal (name changed), a underage girl being touted by a pimp called Mukesh at a shop in south Delhi. Mukesh regularly "supplies" underage, virgin girls to customers in Delhi.

Their "going rates" are on his fingertips. Given below is an excerpt from a conversation CNN-IBN had with Mukesh.

Mukesh: Uska bahut mota paisa lagega. (Payal will be very expensive)

CNN-IBN: Kitna lagega? (How much?)

Mukesh: Kam se kam 80-90 hazar rupay lagega. (At least Rs 80,000 to Rs 90,000.)

A week later, Rahul, Mukesh's right hand man got Payal to meet the SIT team again and repeatedly assured that she was a minor.

Rahul: (I assure you she is young, but you should be the only one having intercourse with her, otherwise there’ll be trouble and I will be in trouble.)

CNN-IBN: Khoon nikelaga? (Will she bleed?) Rahul: Haan. Nahi niklega toh paisey ley jao. Rs 1000 de dena. (Yes. She will. If she does not, you’ll get your money back. Just pay us Rs 1,000 in that case.)

Kolkata: A Naked Truth Emerges

To see how deep the rot ran, the SIT asked Mukesh and Rahul to introduce them to more underage girls in a group.

An excerpt from the conversation:

CNN-IBN: Mujhe 5 ya 6 ek saath dikhao! Ek jagah par dekh saku jahan main. (Show me five or six girls together)

CNN-IBN (Reporter 2 to pimps): Choose karne ke liye bol raha hai bhai. (He wants to choose).

Mukesh: Dekho ye alag-alag hoti hai kahi-kahi jagah par, aur hame dhund ke lana parte hai. (They meet different clients at different places, we need to look for them)