No administrative check as users throng cyber cafes

Vikram Sharma

Tribune News Service 

Jammu, August 19

While Internet services on android phones have been snapped in Jammu and Kashmir to avoid hate messages and fake information being spread after abrogation of Article 370, broadband services are still available at cyber cafes without any administrative check.

All cyber cafes in the city and other parts of the region are functioning normally with heavy rush of people thronging the venue in absence of net services on the phone.

The rush is generally of students who are worried about the schedule of their postponed exams, yet a fringe element sneaking in and doing any damage cannot be ruled out.

Few years ago, the state administration had taken many steps to curb anti-national activities which include government orders to all cyber cafés for installing CCTVs and maintaining record of customers using the Internet services.

However, defying orders, many cyber cafes in the city are not abiding by the rules as most of them do not register records of Internet users.

Also many have not even installed CCTVs cameras in cafes and others having installed are either defunct or broken. “Though we use a particular site icafemanager to list the name and mobile number of the user before giving him access to Internet, yet we cannot assure that the particular user is genuine or not,” said Puneet Chalwa, a cyber café owner at Rehari Chungi.

He also admitted that the then SSP (crime) had called a meeting of all cyber café owners a few years ago and had directed all to install CCTV cameras and maintain register of the users. Shailendra Singh, SSP, Crime, said though no fresh circular had been released in this regard, the earlier directive was still in place .“All cyber café owners are required to follow the guidelines of adhering to CCTV installation and checking on the Aadhar card of the user. Non-compliance to this directive will amount to criminal offence against the cyber café owners,” said the SSP.