VEHARI-Under the police patronage, the internet cafes here are being used as safe havens for dating and watching porn movies thereby destroying the moral values of the youth, The Nation is learnt.
In 2001, the first such scandal was highlighted by the media; as a result, many girls committed suicide. As many other facilities are negatively used in Pakistan and other countries, net cafes are also being used for dating by couples and for watching porn movies. Even minor boys are allowed to use the facility only for Rs10 per hour. Only a few people use it for a purpose like emailing and chatting with their relatives who live abroad.
The most horrible thing is that the police protect these net cafés after getting bribe. Vehari is a peaceful city, now occupied by these internet cafes situated on the Medina Colony Road in the precincts of City police.
Sources revealed that all the juveniles and underage children are allowed to come and enjoy the pornography without any hesitation allegedly by the SHO city and cafes owners. The sources said that the city police get bribe on monthly basis to protect these monsters that are destroying the future of the homeland. According to net café regulation act, in the net cafes, cabins are not allowed and the existing cabins will be removed. Simple tables will be placed openly. The visitors have to provide CNIC and the owner of net café must maintain the record of the customers. If any kind of misuse detected, the liability will be of the owner; and the timing of internet café will be from 8 am to 10 pm.
A worker at the net café said providing online access to pornography is the most viable source of income for internet café these days by charging the rate of Rs 15 per hour for the facility. He said that cafés remained packed with customers especially from 8pm to 12am. The police are well aware of the practice but do nothing since the café owners pay them monthly, he added.
Kashif, who had to close down his cafe during the 2004 slump, said that opening net cafes in Pakistan was easy as there is no regulatory authority to issue licences. Monitoring the content provided at the cafes is the responsibility of the DCO and DPO who raid these cafes only when someone lodges a complaint.
If a net café is caught providing pornographic material, the owner is punished according to the Motion Picture Act. Farooq Ahmed Khan, a human rights activist and lawyer, said that police officials get bribe from net café owners.
When asked about the issue of net cafes, SHO city Rana Akram got angry, and said that he had no concern with the business. He also threatened this scribe that if the story was published he would teach a lesson to latter.
On the other side, a police officer said that this is not a big issue because children also see nude movies at their homes as well. This is a very tragic scenario and the masses requested the authorities concerned to take stern action against the responsible persons.