Not all boys were watching pornography: Police

HYDERABAD: The police's claims of cracking down and “counselling“ underage boys picked up for watching pornography at cyber cafes on Tuesday night now stand the risk of running hollow. Additional deputy commissioner of police

K Babu Rao

on Thursday admitted to TOI that not all 47 kids were watching pornography. “A few of the children were watching violent videos when we had conducted the raids. They too were picked up and their parents called to the police station,“ said Rao.

Two parents have chal lenged the police version; they claimed that their children were not watching sleazy videos at the cyber cafes, but were only gathering information for their school projects.

The parents also insisted that their children were innocent victims and the police action--detaining them at the police station for hours and then parading them in front of the media--has traumatized them. Most of the boys were from Kishan Bagh, Asad Baba Nagar, Rein Bazaar and

Hafez Baba Nagar

.

One of the parents told TOI, “My 14-year-old son, who is in class IX, had gone to the cyber cafe in

Santosh Nagar

to get printouts for his school project when the police came rushing in. My son was also detained in the police station till late at night. But before be ing allowed to go home, he was produced before the media in a press conference and 'counselled'. Please tell me, is this correct?“ Another parent was upset with the police for producing minors before the media like criminals. He too claimed that his son had gone to the cyber cafe to get educational material as they do not have a printer at home.

On Tuesday evening, cops formed teams and swooped down on 92 internet centres in all 17 police station limits of the south zone and picked up 47 boys, between 13 and 16 years of age, for allegedly wat ching pornographic material.They also booked the cyber cafe owners under bailable sections of the Indian Penal Code, instead of stringent sections of the Information Technology Act, 2000. Later, while addressing the media, deputy commissioner of police (South Zone) V Satyanarayana 'counselled' the boys in the presence of their parents. He said the special drive was taken up to curb cyber offences and discourage minors from watching objectionable material on the internet. However, his action was condemned by the legal fraternity and civil society alike.

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