In a shocking incident, around 65 youths were counseled by Hyderabad police for an hour after they were allegedly caught watch porn and ISIS beheading. The counseling was held on Wednesday afternoon in the police building in Hyderabad's Old City area.

Police sources say that "they traced the teens after parents complained that their children were spending inordinate amounts of time at cyber cafes claiming that they needed internet access to do their homework."

Parents were also invited for the counseling. All the children were boys; some were as young as 11.

Salma Sultana, a homemaker, said "her son would take money from her, saying he needed to download material from the internet for school. I did not know what was happening but he would be away for a long time."

The Hyderabad police started searching nearly 100 internet cafes after a series of complaints were lodged like Salma's. Police found that children's used to only browse adult sites. About 30 cases were filed against the internet cafes owners. The charges ranged from not having security cameras on location to permitting minors to watch porn.

At the counseling session, the police requested parents to keep a watch on their children's after-school. They also said they would include schools in helping out with the internet education.

The police added that they were concerned after they found out that many children were watching a large amount of violence which included ISIS propaganda material like filmed beheading.

"We are keeping up our vigil because we see this as a critical area for youngsters to get diverted into undesirable activity," senior official Satyanarayana told NDTV.

In some parts of the session, younger children giggled and said: "they were playing video games when the police found them." Some said that "they were caught watching porn the first or second time they attempted it."

A 16-year-old who is a school dropout said he "was watching music videos on YouTube and was incorrectly collated in the group that allegedly logged on for porn."

At least a few parents were originally felt awkward about accepting their children's misbehaviours, but soon loosened up and shared the difficulty of internet monitoring.

Quddus, who works as a salesperson in a clothes showroom, said "the counseling would not have been his first choice, but he was glad to have participated in it. I first wanted to hit him. That was my first instinct. Then I thought, I need to talk to him. I am glad the Hyderabad police did this drive to wean children away from all this," he told NDTV.

SC keen on blocking porn sites

BY M. DIVYA SRI