For the last couple of weeks, mobile users are finding themselves out of coverage area whenever they are near the Parappana Agrahara central prison. But the worst hit by these irregular mobile services happen to be residents living within a radius of two kilometres from the prison.
After being flooded with complaints, telecom service providers despatched their technical team to find out the cause for the disruption. Soon, the team realised that coverage had been affected on account of the additional jammers installed in the jail to prevent mobile usage among the inmates. A senior Prison Department official said the number of mobile jammers in the prison went up from five to 19 in the last few weeks.
“After the daring jailbreak by serial rapist Jaishankar, prison authorities carried out a surprise raid in the jail and stumbled upon hundreds of mobile phones and SIM cards being used illegally in the prison. So, a decision to was taken to upgrade the jamming system by installing additional equipment,” the official said. The new equipment is powerful enough to jam even 3G network, the jail official pointed out.
P. Nagaraju, general manager, Bangalore Telecom District, BSNL, who confirmed receipt of complaints from its mobile subscribers, said they had spoken to jail authorities about the disruption in their service owing to jammers.
The Prison Department, which has received similar complaints from other private telecom service providers, is now under pressure to reduce the effect of the jamming system.
“We will try to restrict jamming to the four walls of the prison, but are apprehensive that it may help the inmates to resume to illegal usage of mobile phones by stealth,” the official said.
