VARMUL, JULY 11: Residents of north Kashmir’s Varmul and Sopur towns are facing severe problems for the past several days as all the mobile service providers except the state-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigham Limited have shut down their network on the instructions of the police.
 This has angered the residents of the towns who fail to understand the purpose of such restrictions, calling it undemocratic and unjust.
 “The act will serve no purpose for the administration, instead this will annoy common people further who feel cut off because of such restrictions,” says Khursheed Ahmad, a post-graduate student.
 The restrictions have affected most of the subscribers who use the services of companies like Airtel, Aircel, Tata Indicom, Reliance and Vodafone.
 The curbs have been effected because of the volatile situation in the valley. “The temporary ban on the use of mobile phones in the town is to restrict the anti-social elements who use it for their coordination,” claims a police official.
 Surprisingly, unrest has been witnessed across the valley during the last two weeks but it is only Varmul town and some areas of Sopur where restrictions on the use of mobile phones have been enforced.
 Different franchisees of BSNL in the towns have sold hundreds of pre-paid Sim cards during the past two weeks as people have been left with no other option. People are also surprised over the rapid sale of BSNL Sim cards as there has been no proper verification of the buyers.
 “If security is the concern of the district administration then how a Sim card of BSNL is being activated without verification. Hundreds of Sim cards have been activated during the last few weeks, but did they have any idea where these cards have landed,” questions Ashiq Ahmad, who too has switched over to BSNL after the restrictions. 

Lastupdate on : Sun, 11 Jul 2010 21:30:00 Mecca time
Lastupdate on : Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Mon, 12 Jul 2010 00:00:00 IST