A raid on a restaurant, in Patna on Monday. Picture by Ranjeet Kumar Dey

Patna, July 18: Take a lesson or two in moral behaviour from the Patna police or the force might catch you from the collar and drag you behind the bars for “immoral conduct”.

The city police, on a moral policing spree, are busy raiding restaurants and popular shopping complex to teach “strayed” girls and boys a lesson. Today, two restaurants, a beauty parlour, a cyber café and one shopping complex were raided as a part of operations of the anti-human trafficking cell formed by the police last week. At least, 17 couples were taken into custody from the spots and detained at the Kotwali police station.

Hem Plaza Complex, located near the Dakbungalow area, and restaurants Emotions and Gulmohar were raided in the afternoon. The police claimed to have caught couples in compromising positions and also recovered “objectionable items” from these places.

Seventeen girls and an equal number of men were detained by the police. The girls were later allowed to leave with their families while the men were not released till the filing of this report. The police are, in fact, preparing to take legal action against the men.

According to the police, the two restaurants had cabin with curtains where young couples were allegedly indulging in “immoral acts” taking advantage of the dim light inside.

“The families of the girls were contacted and when they arrived the girls were allowed to leave with them. As for the men, legal action will be initiated against them,” a police officer of the raiding team said.

The action of the police, however, has not gone down well with many who feel the police, instead of nabbing criminals and stopping crime, are indulging in unnecessary moral policing only to shift the attention of people from their inability to crack cases.

“A raid on a beauty parlour is understandable as there have been cases of prostitution being carried out from such centres. But why raid a restaurant? Do the police want to say that the girls detained from there are immoral? If a couple wants to spend time at a quiet place with each other, what problem does the police have? This is utter waste of time,” said Ravi Agarwal, a college student.

Earlier, too, the police had conducted similar raids at different parks and at Patna zoo, targeting couples. The couples were abused, insulted and even detained at police stations.

“In cities like Bangalore and Mumbai, the police don’t bother couples. Couples sit and spend quiet moments in open places like Marine Drive and Juhu Beach and no one bothers them. Some of the girls and boys detained in today’s raids are couples who were spending some quiet moments together as the city lacks a good place where there they can spend quality time,” Rashmi Anand, another student, said.

At the Kotwali police station, where the couples were detained, most of the girls refused to speak. One of them murmured, though, that she was all set to land in a major mess.

“I was just sitting with him. I come from a respectable family. What do I do now?” she said, wiping the tears on her face.

The police, however, had their own point of view.

“A restaurant can be said to be a public place. These two restaurants had cabins covered with curtains. The restaurant charges extra money for those who want to sit in the cabins. There are families visiting these restaurants and immoral acts in such places are unacceptable,” a police officer said.

There has been a spurt in the number of criminal cases in the capital and the police have been finding it difficult to control them.

The case in which an MLA’s son had slapped a police officer still remains unsolved with the police not able to arrest the youth till now. Similarly, there has been a spate in incidents of loot, robberies, extortion threats and daylight murders in the capital in the recent past. While these cases await police attention, the cops are busy teaching morality lessons to the residents.