Since Wednesday morning, most cyber cafés in and around Salt Lake have not allowed people to use the Internet.

Most of them admitted that since they never received any written order from the police, they did not maintain a register for visitors’ profile.

“We don’t have a log book. We are turning away our customers till further instructions are received from the police,” said P Mondol, owner of Digiworld, a cyber café in GD market.

Police also found that most of the cafes do not have a licence. “All cyber cafes in houses were running without a licence because Bidhannager Municipal Corporation (BMC) does not allow business establishments in residential complexes,” said a café owner.

Setting up a cyber cafe may not be easy anymore. “We will write to the urban development department to take action against illegal cyber cafes once we gather

the data,” said Biswajeebon Majumder, BMC’s chairman.

In cyber cafes of other areas of the city, guidelines were strictly followed. Though the Kolkata police had issued guidelines for cyber cafes in February, most of these started following them from Wednesday fearing sudden police checking.

A visit to cafes on Sudder Street, Rafi Ahmed Kidwai Road, Park Street and Phoolbagan confirmed that none of them allowed visitors without a valid ID card. The were also maintaining the details of Internet users. “After the recent incident we cannot take any chance,” said a café owner.