The couple who allegedly held three women for more than 30 years were leaders of an extre-mist Maoist collective, it has been claimed.

A senior council source confirmed that Aravindan Balakrishnan and his wife Chanda were arrested last week by police amid allegations that they held three women for more than 30 years.

The alleged victims – a 30-year-old Briton, a 57-year-old Irishwoman and a 69-year-old Malaysian – are believed to have suffered years of “physical and mental abuse” at the hands of the pair.

House-to-house inquiries have been carried out in Peckford Place, Brixton, south London, where the three women were found, and police have confirmed that there are ongoing inquiries relating to a total of 13 addresses, all in the capital, linked to the couple.

The couple, aged 73 and 67, are believed to have been well-known to the police in the 1970s after setting up a communist squat, the Mao Zedong Memorial Centre, in Acre Lane, Brixton in 1976. Balakrishnan, who was known as Comrade Bala, was a former member of the national executive committee of the Communist party of England (Marxist-Leninist) but documents show he was suspended from the party in 1974 for pursuing “conspiratorial and splittist activities”.

Documents also show how in 1978 police raided the Mao Zedong Memorial Centre, arresting 14 members of the organisation, including Aravindan Balakrishnan and wife Chanda, referred to as Comrade Chanda.