Chief Minister Omar Abdullah on Sunday tweeted his displeasure with his own security agencies when he learned that GPRS Internet services had been shut in Kashmir valley without his knowledge and approval.
“I think the restrictions on the Internet in the valley are an overreaction. Please have them lifted. I don’t think the Internet will provoke trouble… Yes please get GPRS restored immediately & in future the decision to cut Internet services should be discussed with me,” the Chief Minister tweeted at 11.30 a.m.
However, when the authorities failed to act for about five hours, Mr. Abdullah’s tweet disappeared from his wall. Soon, the GPRS services were restored at 5.30 p.m.
Sources said that Mr. Abdullah was likely to order an inquiry into how the decision of blocking access to the Internet on the occasion of Afzal Guru’s first death anniversary had been taken without his knowledge and sanction.
Chief General Manager of BSNL, R.K. Kaul told The Hindu that the Internet services were frozen under “proper requisition from a State security agency”.
“We never act on our own. Such orders are always issued on a logged requisition from the State government,” he said. Mr. Kaul asserted that the landline broadband services remained unaffected and the frozen GPRS services were restored under another requisition from the State government.
