Bangalore can, Hyderabad cannot: A football fan watches a late night Euro match in a hotel in Bangalore. (AFP file picture)

Hyderabad, June 27: Calling all creatures of the night: it’s nine and out.

Weekend revellers watched in dismay around 9 last night Hyderabad police pull down the shutters of restaurants, pubs, discos, shopping malls, and even tea and paan stalls.

The busy Abids and Koti areas were deserted by 9.30. “The police have asked us to close our shops. We have no alternative,” said a jeweller in Koti.

Former chief minister . Chandrababu Naidu had relaxed the shutdown deadline till 11 pm — unofficially 1 am — to boost tourism and meet the demands of the new age economy driven by the young. On a selective basis, some hotels were granted permission to operate discos and dancing bars.

Now they are up in arms against the Y.S. Rajasekhar Reddy government’s step. So too are the software engineers and business travellers. “When I can get food and liquor at any shop in Vijayawada at midnight, why can’t I get such facilities here?” asked a textile businessman on a visit to Hyderabad.

“I finish my mid-shift by 10.30 and only then can I come out to eat before going home,” cribbed Divya Sakshi, a software project leader in HSBC, echoing the problem many in the 24-hour call centres will face.

But the police were firm. “Even a tea shop or a paan vendor or a vegetable vendor who wants to operate after 2100 hours must be registered with us,” said police commissioner R.P. Singh.

The government decided to clamp down after a spate of late-night violence. In the past one month, about 32 murders and nearly 1,100 incidents of mugging, snatching and molestation, particularly in the isolated areas on the outskirts of the city, were reported.

Moreover, the police said gambling and prostitution rackets have taken root in the name of entertainment. “We found 42 girls in a single room in a bar last week,” said the commissioner.

After 40 days in power, chief minister Reddy seemed to have unfurled his personal agenda of doing what Naidu didn’t and undoing what Naidu did. “The government has ordered a review of all decisions of Naidu from January 2003,” said finance minister K. Rosaiah.

Reddy made a good beginning by addressing the problems of farmers in an attempt to stop them from committing suicide.

He also earned the goodwill of Hyderabadis by doing away with the practice of stopping traffic whenever the chief minister was on the move.

But the latest move has peeved many. Several techies who had a whiff of the Saturday crackdown scooted to nearby Bangalore — which boasts of a thriving nightlife, again thanks to the booming new age industries — for the weekend.

If the diktat continues, tourists and business might also migrate to Bangalore or Chennai, fear observers.