The raids followed an expose on private television news channel CNN-IBN, which found that some parents were selling their daughters for as little as Rs.12,000.

Rajahmundry Superintendent of Police D. Srinivasulu Sunday said police had arrested 12 members of an inter-state gang and rescued seven girls including five minors.

He said the gang was trapping young girls of the financially weak families and selling them to brothels in Tirupati, Vijayawada and other towns in Andhra Pradesh and in Bangalore and Bellary in Kanataka and Chennai.

Lanka Sankar, a member of the gang, admitted that he had sent 25 women to Chennai. The gang was collecting Rs.10,000 to Rs.20,000 for providing the girls.

Those arrested include a man and a woman who wanted to sell their own daughters to brokers for Rs.12,000.

The investigations by police revealed that the brokers were targeting poverty-stricken families and many parents had sold their daughters in the past. Further investigations are on to identify the culprits.

Special teams have been sent to various towns in the state and neighbouring states to rescue the girls who were sold to brothels during last few years.

Officials in Hyderabad said more raids would be conducted in other towns.

The busting of the racket in Rajahmundry in coastal Andhra followed a similar racket that had come to light in neighbouring Maharashtra last week in which police had rescued 41 women - 37 of them from Andhra Pradesh.

A survey by an NGO had recently revealed that a substantial number of girls of poor families from Andhra Pradesh work as prostitutes in cities like Bangalore, Chennai, Mumbai, Pune and Goa. A large number of them are reported to be from coastal Andhra and Rayalseema regions of the state.