After a week of disruptions in cellphone services in the Valley following attacks by an unknown armed outfit, the State police have begun restoring the operations of mobile-phone towers shut down by wary owners of the land on which they stand.
“We have already restored operations of 609 mobile towers in 13 districts [police districts],” a senior police officer said here on Wednesday.
The police said that of the 2,816 towers in the Valley, 1,058 were shut down after attacks on them and telecom outlets by Lashkar-e-Islam, which has put up posters warning service providers to wind up their operations in Kashmir.
Landowners who had allowed towers on their property shut them down after a series of grenade attacks in north Kashmir and Srinagar.
“After assurances of security from the police and a statement by the UJC [United Jihad Council] and the Hurriyat that they are not in favour of a ban on mobile services, we decided to switch on our towers again,” Shabbir Ahmad, president of the BSNL Tower Landlords’ Association, told The Hindu .
The State government made it clear to the landowners on Wednesday that if they did not want to restart the towers on their property, these would be shifted elsewhere.
“If someone doesn’t want to restart the tower on their property, we would move the tower to a more secure location, as is the case anywhere in India,” State Information and Technology Minister Imran Ansari said.
Mr. Ansari said Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed met various stakeholders of telecom services on Wednesday and was hopeful that the “service would be back to normal from Thursday.”
