A cyber café at Yashkamal Complex in Jamshedpur. Picture by Srinivas

Jamshedpur, July 30: The serial blasts in Bangalore and Ahmedabad have hit the steel city in more ways than one.

The recent email from some terrorist outfit just before the Ahmedabad blasts have made the East Singhbhum district police to keep a tab on cyber cafés in the steel city.

This time, a person visiting a cyber café may have to produce his identity card or get their names registered with the cyber café. It is not only the visitors or users who are under scanner, even the café owners have to obtain licence from the state government or local administration for running it.

East Singhbhum superintendent of police Naveen Kumar Singh will meet all cyber cafés owners of the city very soon and talk with them and find out ways of checking cyber crime. The cyber café owners would be given a stipulated time within which they have to get their cafés registered and obtain the licence otherwise they would be prosecuted and their cafés would be seized.

“Of late there is a spurt in cyber crime. We have thought of a way to stop it from going out of control,” said Singh.

“We would check the background of the users at cyber cafés and keep a check on the cyber café owners too,” said Singh.

Though no survey has been conducted but there are around 150 cyber cafés operating in the steel city and many among them are running without a licence.

“Often they obtain Internet connection from Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited for personal use and set up cafés at their home. They use the Internet for commer- cial gains. The owners also do not check what the users are doing at their café, which website they are surfing. We cannot do that but we have to keep a tab in our own way,” said Singh.

He said that he has set up a cyber cell in the district and police officers are being trained to detect such crime.

The cyber cell comprises three officials and till now it has been successful in cracking many cyber crimes in the steel city.

They have been successful in busting a gang who used to extort money from businessmen and traders by sending them threat emails. This apart, the district police have solved many cases where goons harassed the women through emails, he said.