RE: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mukto-mona/message/22856

Very good article Mehul.

It certainly deserves to be published widely.

Other examples of this morality policing and protecting of values are
linked to and copied below. (this is apparently only one of a long
string of these raids that have become commonplace).

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/972846.cms

Aligarh women keep off cyber cafes

ALIGARH: This historic city in UP, once a fertile ground for
political, social and educational reform, has retreated into medieval
times. No women are to be seen at cyber cafes that had till recently
enjoyed a flourishing trade.

The "raids", recorded on television, have already documented the
humiliation that young women had to suffer. The police had revelled
in forcing the women to face TV cameras.

The police have been busy swooping down on such cafes from December
13 onwards. While their success in rounding up persons involved
in "illegitimate" activities is still uncertain, it has certainly
driven away women and forced some cyber cafe owners to rethink their
business options. Some owners say that harassment by the "moral
police", as the local constabulary has largely come to be referred
to, may force them to take up alternative vocations.

According to Naved Ahmed, a student and owner of a cyber cafe, some
arrests were carried out after a girl resisted misbehaviour by a
policeman. It was at this cafe that a policeman pulled an engineering
student out of a cubicle by her hair. Later, following protests, the
personal security officer of the SP (city), S K Verma, was suspended
for this act.

For all their efforts, the police have so far arrested six men from a
cyber cafe for allegedly "behaving obscenely in a public place".

The report in this case was filed by the Civil Lines police station
in charge, Nawab Singh. Asked how the surfers' behaviour was obscene,
Singh said, "Obscenity can lie in a gesture, a facial expression or
just words for that matter."

The police even raided restaurants where female students were having
lunch with their male friends. All the raids by the police were
carried out by officers accompanied by about two dozen policemen. In
one of the cyber cafes, the owner said surfers were slapped by
policemen.

The campaign by the police has received a mixed response in local
academic circles. AMU proctor Nafis Ahmed said, "What the police did
was necessary, as some cyber cafes provide cubicles just for shady
activities. But the way the police ran amok was wrong." Professor
Mustafa Zaidi said the raids were police harassment disguised in
moral terms.

The Aligarh city police chief S K Verma said: "The raids have been
welcomed by most residents. Only some cyber cafe owners, who are
encouraging indecent activities, are opposing them."