Police unable to crack down on cafes because of manpower crunch

Internet cafes in Marathwada, a region that is newly emerging as a meeting point for terror operatives, are perfect places to hatch bomb blast conspiracies.

Rules and regulations like maintaining visitor records are hardly enforced by the police.

Himayat Baig, the Beed man arrested from the city on Wednesday in the February 13 German Bakery blast case, ran a cyber caf ufffd in Udgir in Latur district till January.

The police say a "severe manpower crunch" prevents them from keeping a tab on cafes so that unlawful activities are not carried out there.

A visit to cyber cafes in Udgir and Beed revealed only a few were maintaining a record of visitors and demanding identity proofs from new customers.

No cyber cafe was found to have installed CCTV cameras.

'It affects business'

A cafe owner, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said it did not make business sense to stick to the rules. "Most of the crowd using the cyber cafes is the college-going youth.

If rules are strictly implemented, then we will not get any customers and our business will fail," said the caf ufffd owner.

Universal Cyber Cafe near Lalbahadur Shastri School in Udgir was one of the few cafes found maintaining daily records of visitors.

"We have strictly maintained a register of visitors in which their names, addresses and contact numbers are recorded," said Ratikant Sabne, who manages the cafe.

"Apart from that, if any new customer comes to our cafe, we demand a photo-identity proof of his, and he is allowed to use the infrastructure only when the rules are complied with."

A senior police official from Beed district said his force had a tough time keeping a tab on cyber cafes as it neither had the manpower nor the training to make cafes stick to rules.

"It is not possible for us to keep a tab on each and every activity carried out in Internet cafes.

Our staff, barring a few exceptions, comes from the rural areas and doesn't have the orientation and can't anticipate any serious terror threat," said the officer.

"There is no mechanism to have suspicious persons at public places -- like the Internet cafes -- under surveillance."

Internet connection with terror

It may be recalled that the eight Indian Mujahideen members who were running their media cell -- it was busted in October 2008 -- were also using a cyber cafe and computer institute located in Camp near Qureshi Masjid. The conspiracy in serial bomb blasts in Mumbai, Delhi, Ahmedabad, Bangalore and other cities were partly hatched at this location. Read Next Story Bengali touch to city Ganapatis› Trending Stories Latest Photos Latest Videos Latest Web Stories ADVERTISEMENT Mid-Day Fast ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT