A web portal which once belonged to the Indian Embassy in Bahrain has now turned into a porn site with a local telecom services provider blaming the mission for the lapse.

The Teen Porn website, located at www.indianembassy-bah.com, was used by the Indian Embassy before they moved to www.indianembassybahrain.com last year.

"The embassy should not have let the name go and should have secured it, even if they had to change the administrator," said an official of Batelco, the local telecom services provider.

The official told the Gulf Daily News that Batelco was powerless to help, since it was only responsible for registering domain names ending in .bh.

A spokesperson of the Indian Embassy said they simply stopped using the old website when it changed administrators and was shocked to discover the old address was now being used to peddle porn.

"We stopped using this address in July last year after we were not satisfied with the service we were provided by the administrators. Ever since we changed to the new address, www.indianembassybahrain.com," the spokesperson said.

"But since we have had scores of calls from people complaining about the old address being used for pornography."

He said the Embassy had tried contacting those behind the Teen Porn site, but had received no response.

"When they contacted Incarnate (ME), the company that used to administer their website, they were told the person responsible for looking after their old site had moved to India. However, we (the Embassy) and the company are unable to get in touch with him," the spokesman told the paper.

"Under the circumstances, there is nothing we can do but keep telling people about the new address," he said.

However, they never realised that it would resurface as a site selling pornography. Since it is an unregistered free domain, it is unclear who owns it, the paper said.

The official from Batelco also advised institutions to register their internet domain names to protect their rights and privacy, as well as to prevent misuse.

For the moment though, anyone searching Google for "Indian Embassy Bahrain" will find the Teen Porn website listed first, above the official Indian Embassy site.