(image Source: forum.china.com.cn)

BY SHELLY YANG
ANCHOR GARY COTTON

China is reeling over allegations that a 34-year-old family man kept six young women as sex slaves in a dungeon for two years, during which time two of them were killed.

According to a Shanghai TV station, Li Hao worked for the technological supervision bureau in the city of Luoyang, Henan Province. He allegedly kidnapped the women from local karaoke bars and forced them into a makeshift prison. (Dragon TV)

Police say he dug two rooms under his basement, originally planning to use the space to film pornographic videos to make money.

And China Daily made this graphic to illustrate the setup. Li reportedly provided the women with things like computers and video games to pass the time but did not let them use the Internet. (China Daily)

Police say Li killed two of the women when they tried to fight back. The Daily Mail explains the conditions the women were allegedly kept in.

“[A paper] described the rooms the women ate, slept and defecated in as dank and smelly. …Li only let some of the women out when he wanted them to perform sexual services for other men to earn money for him, the paper claimed. It was on one of these outings that one of the women, a 23-year-old, escaped and went to the police...”

And while the story has taken off across the Internet, the BBC reports local officials tried to quash it.

“The journalist from the Southern Metropolis Daily who first reported the story, meanwhile, said he had been visited by two men - apparently from the local authorities - who asked for  his source and warned him he had been revealing ‘state secrets’.”

State secret? An iFeng blogger immediately questions the term.

“I guess it’s not state secret, but a Luoyang secret, because it will tarnish the image of the local government. The officials should not try to conceal the scandal, but confront it radically and guarantee people’s right to transparent information.”

Maybe Gawker’s explanation is more close to the bone, explaining, as terrible as it sounds, city officials are probably worried about the timing of the story.

“…Luoyang is participating in a national competition to be declared a ‘Civilized City,’ and, well, ‘civil servant keeping sex slaves’ doesn't really scream ‘civilized.’ You know what does, though? Detaining journalists to prevent the story from being written about.”

Reports also say Li’s wife and son were unaware of the alleged crimes.

Transcript by Newsy.