A girl hides her face at a Srinagar eatery. Picture by Abdul Qayoom Wani

Srinagar, June 21: Between fighting militants and fending off grenades, Jammu and Kashmir police are having to tackle another problem: couples bunking classes.

Raids have been conducted in the past few days on restaurants and cyber cafes, where students often get cosy in cabins. Today, several of them, believed to have been found in “objectionable positions’’, were dragged out.

“We inspected restaurants, Internet cafes and parks after complaints that students bunk classes and go to such places. Many were detained and we informed their parents to take them home. They have been advised not to do it again,” Srinagar police chief Ahfad-ul-Mujtaba said.

Another police official said around two dozen restaurants and cyber cafes in Regal Chowk, Ali Jan Plaza and Polo View areas of Srinagar were “inspected’’, during which several couples were detained.

“Complaints kept pouring in that secondary, higher-secondary and undergraduate students, mostly teenagers, stray into cyber cafes and restaurants instead of going to classes. We found enough truth in these complaints and took action today,” the official said.

The “inspection’’ sent couples scurrying for cover. Restaurant owners have been asked to remove the cabins which, police officials say, are often “being misused”.

At Srinagar’s botanical garden, too, most visitors were found to be students, said Ahfad, whose men visited the place following the complaints about truant students.

The raids have come a few months after the Forum Against Social Evil, a pressure group of separatist and social groups, launched a campaign against what it saw as “growing instances of immorality’’ in the Valley. The police, however, declared the forum’s activities unlawful and arrested many of its activists.

Asiya Andrabi, who heads the hardline Dukhtaran-e-Milat, which is part of the social forum, welcomed the raids. “We have been asking the police to take action against immoral activities. We are happy to see them act,” she said.

But the crackdown has upset hotel owners, who want the police to tread carefully. Habib Ullah Mir, the president of the Kashmir Hotel and Restaurant Owners Association, said: “We will support the police if they remove cabins from restaurants where such activities take place. But they shouldn’t harass others unnecessarily.”

But another owner complained that only smaller hotels were being singled out.