Panaji, Aug 8 (IANS): Goa Chief Minister Laxmikant Parseskar said on Saturday it is difficult to shut down the websites of escort services because they are hosted on servers outside the country.

"The escort services' websites are hosted outside India. They project themselves as genuine escort service providers and lure customers in person for sexual gratification," Parsekar said in a written reply in the Goa assembly.

As a remedial measure, the cyber crime cell has requested the computer emergency response team to block these sites and disable search engines so that their links do not pop up on screens, he said.

Opposition legislators claimed that such websites portrayed Goa as a sex tourism destination.

"We are going the way of Pattaya. There has been a rise of escort services, phishing attacks," independent legislator from Porvorim Rohan Khaunte said.

Parsekar said that said that the cyber cell of Goa Police was specifically tasked to keep an eye on the mushrooming of these "obnoxious" websites.

He said that other measures which are being taken to ban the influence of escort sites and pornography in Goa, especially among the youth, are the banning of mobile phones in educational premises and the incorporation of internet etiquette in the school curriculum.

The ministry of communications and information and technology, under section 79(3)(b) of the IT Act 2000, banned 857 websites, terming their content "immoral and indecent", in its July 31 order.