The Uttar Pradesh government has banned closed cabins in Internet cafes following a spate of incidents involving transmission and distribution of pornographic material, state's Information Technology Minister Virendra Singh said.

A directive to this effect has been issued to all district magistrates here.

The minister said Friday: "Two recent incidents involving misuse of cyber cafes by youngsters in Agra and Aligarh came as a wake-up call. We realised that closed cabins at cyber cafes were the root cause of such activity."

"These closed cabins were a breeding ground for pornographic cyber crimes. If privacy is not available in such cafes, exchange of pornographic material, too, will taper off," he said.

There are an estimated 8,000 cyber cafes in the state.

Another move that was still in the pipeline was to make it mandatory for all Internet cafes to register with the district police, Singh said.

"This practice in Karnataka substantially curbed cyber crime," he added.