In the wake of the recent terrorist strikes at Bangalore and Ahmedabad, which involved the use of Internet technology, Police Commissioner Satyapal Singh today issued orders to all police stations to take stern action against cyber cafes operating without police licences. Singh said that owners of cyber cafes who not have police licences should close operations with immediate effect.

“They can re-open the cyber cafes only after obtaining the licence. The documents required for the licence should be submitted at the earliest,” Singh stated in a press release.

Last year the state government had decided to impose some restrictions on cyber cafes following complaints of their use for anti-social activities. Obtaining police permission was then made compulsory for operating a cyber café.

The city police then came up

with a list of several documents to be attached with the application for cyber café licences. A licence was not issued if a cyber café owner failed to produce even a single of these documents.

This led to a dispute between the police and the Cyber Café Owners’ Association. Many cyber café owners were not able to produce the no objection certificate (NoC) from the State Government’s public works department (PWD) and the the municipal corporation’s health department.

“There are many ambiguities in the current licensing system. Just because some cyber café owners sold tea, coffee or other refreshments, all the other cyber cafes were also asked to get an NoC from the health department of the PMC or PCMC. Also, many cyber cafés are functioning from rented premises. So they were denied the NoC by the public works department,” said a cyber café owner.