Govt. unconcerned over telecom breakdown as 3,000 sites become non-functional in Kashmir

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz

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SRINAGAR, Jun 1: Even as over 3,000 Base Transceiver Stations (BTSs), installed over 1200 to 1400 mobile signal towers, of different telecommunication companies have become non-functional in Kashmir valley due to the sustained threats and attacks by a guerrilla group ‘Lashkar-e-Islam’ in the last one week, Mufti Mohammad Sayeed’s PDP-BJP government in Jammu and Kashmir seems to be completely unconcerned.

The latest grenade attack occurred on a tower at Gadoodbagh, in Habbakadal area of downtown Srinagar on Monday. There was not much of material damage to the steel-fabricated tower but a parked vehicle got hit and one person sustained injuries. The first in the summer capital, Monday’s grenade attack sent shivers down the spine of thousands of the people associated with the mobile telephony operations in the Valley. Official sources admitted that more than 200 BTSs went out of service in the capital in just three hours after the blast. All the companies’ showrooms were closed down in Srinagar in the afternoon.

Only once, in response to a reporter’s question, did Chief Minister make a brief comment, reassuring that the government would not let the peace derail. On two occasions, Director General of Police and Inspector General of Police, Kashmir, came out with their brief statements, claiming that the militants of Hizbul Mujahideen were involved in circulating threats and attacking the civilians who were defying the diktat of “shutting down all Laaptu recharge outlets and mobile towers in entire Kashmir within one day”.

According to Police, the first incident of a grenade attack on a tower at Kralteng in Sopore has been solved with the arrest of two persons. Besides, three persons have been detained for allegedly downloading, printing, circulating and pasting the threat posters of ‘Lashkar-e-Islam’ in Khrew area of Pampore. SSP Awantipore, Mohammad Irshad, said on Monday that their motive was “extortion” and none of them was associated with any militant group. They have been booked under Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act.

The State and the Central government’s near-total silence has buttressed speculations and provided a tool to the rank separatists to attribute the offensive to the conspiracy theory. Over 70 percent people in media and social media have found it easier to allege that it was all “a handiwork of the government-sponsored counter-insurgents”. Union Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar’s suggestion---that India would use terrorists to neutralise the terrorists---came handy to the people who have been holding “India” responsible for everything bad in Kashmir.

“Unfortunately, nobody in the political establishment has even condemned these attacks and the civilian killings, let alone contesting the separatists and the Pakistan-sponsored militants and their support structure in the Valley. Even those known for protests and statements have been completely mute to the offensive. While the PDP leaders, who protested suspension of SMS and Internet services during Omar Abdullah’s rule, have been conveniently silent, Omar himself has avoided being committal on it on Twitter. Most surprising is BJP’s silence. Had it happened during UPA regime, Ravi Shankar Prasad (Union Telecommunication Minister) would have raised a storm”, said a senior Police official, insisting to remain anonymous.

Another middle-ranking officer disclosed that there was “absolutely no pressure” on the Police to offset the ‘Lashkar-e-Islam’ offensive. “Nobody in Police dares to touch, detain or question a suspect during the Mufti government. Arrest of suspects and booking them under PSA has been fully abandoned. Officials are more cautious after the Narbal incident (when some Police officials were arrested and booked for murder before an inquiry into the death of a civilian in the Police firing). Obviously, the other side will reap its benefits. So you can say, whatever the number of the militants and their overground supporters, they are enjoying a field day”, said the officer.

Highly placed sources in the Police Headquarters, however, insisted that the Police would restore operation on all the non-functional towers “within three days” with the deployment of armed guards. “We will relocate and set up some of the towers at protected premises”, said a source. He insisted that “Lashkar-e-Islam” was the front name of a Sopore-based group of six Hizbul Mujahideen militants.

Telecom officials told State Times that they had left the option or closing down or continuing the operations to the landlords and recharge vendors. “We tell them to run it or shut it down as per their own judgment”, said an official.

According to the Telecom sources, currently there were around 9,000 BTSs in the Valley. As two or three companies share a tower and install their BTSs on a tower, the number of the BTSs of BSNL, Airtel, Aircel, Vodafone, Reliance and Idea Cellular closed down in Kashmir in the last seven days was estimated to be over 3,000.

A well-placed authoritative source said that out of Vodafone’s 1400 BTSs in J&K, around 8,00 were in the Valley. As many as 300 sites have been shut down. The last to be taken off the air, was in the capital’s flood-ravaged posh neighbourhood of Rajbagh. “We have reports that voice and data services, including Internet, have stopped on 300 sites of BSNL, 300 of Vodafone, 500 of Aircel and 800 of Airtel. A large number of towers were closed today in Srinagar and South Kashmir’s Shopian township”, he said.

As two persons have been killed and six more left injured in seven attacks since May 23, authorities were reportedly thinking on providing guard to the Mobile Switching Control (MSC) facility of different companies in Srinagar. While as Vodafone’s, Reliance’s and Idea’s MSCs are already in Jammu, Airtel (Highland Automobiles and Gee Enn Bakery M.A. Road), Aircel (Grand Mumtaz and Barzullah) and BSNL (M.A. Road and Barzullah) are operating in Srinagar and Jammu.

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Breakthrough achieved in Kashmir shrine fire

‘Sectarian angle’ ruled out but Police seeking permission for narco-analysis of the key accused

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz
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SRINAGAR, May 30: Within 24 hours, Police are understood to have achieved breakthrough in Friday’s mysterious fire in the shrine of Ayatullah Aga Syed Mehdi Al-Moosavi, a 20th century Shia spiritual leader and a prominent preacher of Islam who established his seat in Kashmir’s Budgam town.

Unidentified miscreants, according to the residents and the Police sources, had carried an LPG cylinder and oven to the shrine situated on a hillock in Budgam after breaking into two shops in close vicinity of Budgam Police Station. Some people, including Aga Syed Mohammad Fazalullah, the head of a faction of Anjuman-e-Sharayee Shia’an, who were offering Fatihah to their relatives and forefathers buried in a nearby graveyard, spotted flames and smoke billowing out of the shrine early on Friday morning.

The fire was brought under control before senior Police and civil administration officers, including DIG Central Kashmir Ghulam Hassan Bhat, SSP Budgam Fayaz Ahmad Lone and Deputy Commissioner Mir Altaf Ahmad, reached the spot. President Anjuman-e-Sharayee and senior Hurriyat leader Aga Syed Hassan expressed concern over the incident and demanded a thorough investigation. He implored the public to maintain harmony and let the Police carry out its investigation even as the district headquarters observed complete shutdown on Friday and a protest march was taken to DC's office.

Budgam Police Station, seized the LPG cylinder, registered FIR and started the investigation under continuous supervision of DIG Mr Bhat. Police apprehended three local suspects. Of them, two youths, identified as Saquib and Samir, both residents of Budgam town, according to the Police sources, admitted to have carried out the mischief.

SSP Budgam Fayaz Ahmad Lone refused to share details. He said it could hamper the investigation. He, however, confirmed that the Police had achieved breakthrough.

“We are investigating all possible theories. Yes, it is a fact that we have written to senior officers and we are seeking permission for narco-analysis of the two accused from a court of law”, Mr Lone told State Times . “As of now, we do not find any attempt of creating sectarian disturbance. But, we are still busy with the investigation”, he said.

Sources privy to the investigation said that the key accused Saquib maintained during two days of sustained interrogation that he had set the shrine on fire as he was “burning in rage over the bad things happening inside it”. However, his resistance to the investigators’ attempt of opening the data of his mobile phone led the Police to suspect "some other hand”.

“Before we took him into custody, he had locked his cellphone. He did not cooperate with us and did not disclose the password when we made sustained efforts to analyse his phone’s data. Now, we are seeking call detail record of his phone from the company and assistance from technical experts to check its data”, said an official. “It will help us track the people who have been in touch with this man”, he said. Police believe that burglary and stealing away cash from an iron safe could have been the motive of the miscreants but other theories are also being pursued. Police are also looking for a gas-cutter which could have been used to break the iron-safe.

The shrine is situated outside the battalion headquarters of Rashtriya Rifles 53 Bn and a defunct memorial of the Battle of Budgam of 1947. The shrine is also the mausoleum of Ayatullah Mehdi’s successors Aga Syed Yousuf Al-Moosavi and Aga Syed Mustafa Al-Moosavi.

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Rifle grenade attack on towers in Sopore

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz

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SRINAGAR, May 29: In their fifth attack in northern Kashmir, suspected guerrillas of ‘Lashkar-e-Islam’ outfit on Friday targeted three mobile phone signal towers of the telecommunication companies in Sopore.

Official sources told State Times that suspected militants fired two UBGL grenades towards three towers installed at Ganjoo House, in close vicinity of Hassan Motors, which also houses a company headquarters of Rashtriya Rifles 22^nd battalion, at around 9.00 p.m. However, both the rifle grenades failed to hit the target and exploded in the air without causing any damage.

No guerrilla group had immediately claimed responsibility.

Sources said that the daredevil attack came in hours of a high level security meeting on the offensive against the telecommunication companies that was chaired by Director General of Police K Rajendra Kumar and attended by senior Police, CRPF and Army officers. The meeting venue was not far away from Ganjoo House which was targeted in the evening.

After a series of threats, that came in the wake of the seizure of a communication device installed by militants atop a tower in Sopore, ‘Lashkar-e-Islam’ warned the operators and service retailers to shut their business. On May 23, the first attack, a hand grenade, occurred on the premises of a tower operator at Kralteng, Sopore. On May 25, unidentified gunmen shot dead one Rafeeq Bhat of Handwara who worked at a BSNL franchise at Shah Faisal Market in Sopore. The franchise owner and one of his employees got critically injured.

On May 26, unidentified gunmen shot dead another tower operator, Ghulam Hassan Dar, at his home in Dooru village of Sopore. Sixteen AK-47 rounds were pumped into his body. On May 27, unidentified gunmen fired upon another tower operator, Imtiyaz Ahmad Sofi alias Nadru, at Saad Mohalla of Pattan. With gunshot wounds in his leg, he was admitted to Bone & Joint Hospital of Srinagar.

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‘Lashkar-e-Islam’ sets 24-hours deadline to shut cellphone operations in Kashmir

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz

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SRINAGAR, May 29: After grinding to a halt mobile telephony in Sopore, Baramulla and Pattan townships of northern Kashmir by a chain of attacks that had left two persons dead and three more wounded, ‘Lashkar-e-Islam’ outfit has issued a fresh warning and asked the network operators and recharge outlets to close down their operations permanently in entire Kashmir valley within 24 hours.

Hours before Friday’s rifle grenade attack on two mobile phone signal towers which missed the target at Ganjoo House in Sopore [see box], mysterious guerrilla outfit ‘Lashkar-e-Islam’ said in unequivocal terms that it wanted total closure of the mobile telephone system in entire Kashmir valley.

“From now on, if telecommunication networks, Lapo recharge and tower land owners don’t stop their work, we will take strict action against them. They have only one day to wind up their work,” warned the group’s field operation spokesman Gazi Abu Sariq in a statement released by a local news agency. He alleged that senior jihadist commanders in Kashmir had been killed or arrested with the help of “telecommunications”.

“After our writing to the telecommunication networks, the results are known to everyone. When Indian government asked them to terminate the SMS services as same benefited the Mujahideen, it took these telecommunication networks less than half-an-hour to terminate the services. Today, when for the sake of Islam we ask these telecommunication networks to suspend their operations, why do they respond with reluctance? Why have they not stopped their services till now? Even at present, from everywhere there are signals of towers and recharge lapo shops are doing their business. Land owners also are not dismantling their towers. Showroom people are also in the showrooms and our eyes are on everyone,” the outfit spokesman said in his statement.

He advised the chiefs of the militant organisations to “concentrate on ground situation because Allah has mentioned that it is His land and here only His law shall prevail.” “Only those who are in the battlefield know what hardships they do face. A Mujahid in the battlefield knows what he has to remain cautious about and, thanks to Almighty, we have better knowledge about Quran and Sunnah”, he added.

In a significant development, the statement asked Kashmir’s Hurriyat leaders to take oath on Quran to get united. “We want to tell you (Hurriyat) leaders that, from now on, do not participate in the funeral procession of any martyr and never do politics by lecturing on these occasions. Stop playing politics over the blood of martyrs. We will not accept it. It will be better for Hurriyat to mind its own business and avoid interference in our matters. If Hurriyat does its duty with honesty, it will be better.

Reports said that most of the network towers and almost all the services recharge outlets have been closed down in Sopore-Baramulla-Pattan zone. Army, Police and other security agencies have approached the recharge vendors and the tower operators to continue their business without fear. However, their persuasion has field to yield any positive result as the terror group has continued attacks concurrent to its threats.

Today’s reports said that threats were communicated by phone to a large number of the people associated with mobile telephony in other North Kashmir towns like Kupwara, Drugmulla and Sogam. After the Friday prayers, a threatening letter to the vendors appeared at a shop in Drugmulla, 5 Km short of Kupwara and close to Army’s Sector Headquarters, asking the retailers to immediately shut their business and dismantle the towers.

“Now everybody has shut the recharge business, though all the towers are still functional in Kupwara district. But if, God forbid, any fatal casualty happens here, people will shut down all the signal towers excluding the ones installed at the residences of retired Police officers and other security zones”, said a resident of Drugmulla.

Formidable guerrilla outfits like Lashkar-e-Tayyiba and Hizbul Mujahideen have publicly disassociated with the attacks and threats to the mobile phone network and services operators. Senior separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani has unequivocally condemned these attacks as “acts of terrorism” and by insinuation attributed the same to the “counter-terrorists” which the Indian Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar had suggested to raise last week. Geelani has asked Pakistan-based United Jihad Council chief Syed Salahuddin to hold a detailed investigation into the unknown outfit’s threats and attacks on the mobile operators.

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IGP holds Hizbul Mujahideen responsible for Sopore telecom breakdown

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz

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SRINAGAR, May 28: Breaking the State government’s silence over the mobile telephony breakdown in Sopore, Inspector General of Police for Kashmir Zone Syed Javaid Mujataba Gillani claimed on Thursday that none other than a local group of Hizbul Mujahideen militants had spread a wave of terror with four attacks in the last five days. Two persons associated with the mobile phone operations have been killed and three more injured.

“These threats and attacks started after we seized an improvised radio device which Hizbul Mujahideen had planted on a tower. It was a call-repeater used for receiving, relaying and boosting their voice data in Sopore, Baramulla and Pattan. They warned the people operating the towers of different companies and asked the private vendors to stop recharging phone services. First they printed and circulated a poster and later they started the strikes”, IGP Kashmir told State Times.

Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Tayyiba and head of the Hizbul Mujahideen and United Jihad Council, Syed Salahuddin, have condemned the armed attacks and disassociated themselves from the offensive. They have attributed it to the Indian Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar’s “counter-terrorists”. Significantly, however, none of the separatist or militant groups has called for any protest shutdown, buttressing speculations of a militant group’s involvement.

Mr Gillani claimed that the Police had launched a comprehensive investigation and succeeded in identifying all the 6 to 8 militants and their overground workers who had threatened people, circulated posters and attacked the defiant operators. “We have fully worked out the grenade attack on a tower operator’s premises at Kralteng on May 23. We have also seized some posters and tracked almost all the characters associated with the task of threatening the vendors”, IGP said. Over half-a-dozen suspects have been arrested and detained for questioning.

Reports from North Kashmir said that almost all the towers of the private companies, installed on private premises, have been shut down. Services in Baramulla too have been disrupted as some landlords and SIM card retailers have installed notice boards of closure. “Only the main switching centres and networking towers on protected premises are now functional”, said a resident. He claimed that Airtel had fully closed down its business and operations in North Kashmir after the four attacks. None of the officials in Aircel and Airtel responded to phone calls.

IGP said that Police were “continuously in touch with BSNL and all the private telecommunication companies. “We are working on it and trying to restore the telecommunication system in Sopore, Baramulla and Pattan. We have offered the tower operators and vendors Police protection. I am hopeful that the mobile telephony operations will resume in a couple of days”, IGP asserted.

According to Police sources, there are 192 towers of different telecommunication companies in the jurisdiction of the Police district of Sopore. Of these, 28 are in Sopore town. Of the 28, as many as 21 towers have been shut in the town in the wake of the suspected militant threats and attacks on the service providers. Reports said that over 100 towers were now non-functional in Sopore and Baramulla areas. Pre-paid cellphone subscribers have been hit the worst.

Only the separatist hardliner Syed Ali Shah Geelani and BJP spokesman Khalid Jehangir have condemned the attacks and killing of the two civilians. BJP’s partner in the State government, PDP, besides the principal opposition parties National Conference and Congress have remained tight-lipped.

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‘Lashkar-e-Islam’ killings turn apple-town into a ghost town

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz

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SRINAGAR, May 27:  Indiscriminate firing from AK-47 rifles on five civilians associated with the mobile telephony operations on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday has abruptly turned Sopore---the apple rich township in northern Kashmir that was bustling with business until beginning of this month---into a ghost town. Everything from the Government offices and banks to the street vendors and private businesses, shuts before the sunset even as the threat of an unknown guerrilla group ‘Lashkar-e-Islam’ has brought uncertainty to the livelihood of thousands of the Kashmiri youths working for the private telecommunication companies.

Twenty-six-year-old Rafeeq Bhat of Handwara died on the spot in the first shootout at his BSNL franchise office-cum-showroom at Shah Faisal Market. The owner, along with another employee, sustained injuries. On previous Saturday, unidentified ‘militants’ had started the operation of making entire mobile phone services dysfunctional in Sopore with a grenade attack on the premises of a tower operator at Kralteng. It, however, didn’t explode.

In the third attack, 55-year-old Ghulam Hassan Dar was shot dead when gunmen pumped 16 AK-47 bullets into his body at Dooru, on the outskirts of Sopore on Tuesday. Dar had an Airtel tower at his home and a services recharge outlet. According to the residents, six “militants” had appeared at his home last week and asked him to close down his mobile phone operation and business. He defied the diktat.

In the fourth consecutive attack on Wednesday, gunmen fired upon Imtiyaz Ahmad Sofi alias Nadru close to his home at Saad Mohalla of Pattan. Nadru operates three signal towers of Airtel, Idea Cellular and Vodafone at his premises. With gunshots in his thigh, he was evacuated and rushed to Bone and Joint Hospital at Barzulla in Srinagar.

“Every day an attack betrays incompetence and indifference of the State government. It also indicates total helplessness of the ordinary citizens. Everybody feels insecure. Nobody dares to move out after sunset as the fear of the gunmen has gripped Sopore after 5 years. Now, the gunmen are calling the shots and killing their targets at will. Nobody from the government or the ruling coalition has uttered a word of concern or condemnation. Even the separatist leaders are dumbfounded, though Syed Ali Shah Geelani has dismissed these attacks as terrorist actions. Yasin Malik has asked Hizbul Mujahideen chief Syed Salah-ud-din to hold a probe. None of them has come forward with a word of reassurance to the residents of Sopore. None of them has called for a protest shutdown”, Said one Ghulam Mohammad Lone who has a tower at his home and has closed it down.

Not one of the people one talks to in Sopore is ready to say a word on record. “This is all off the record. Don’t please publish my name”, they plead invariably. “After floods and other natural calamities, this is a serious threat to Kashmir’s economy. It will render thousands of the Kashmiri youths jobless”, said Tanvir Ahmad who works as an engineer with one of the companies. “Our company has already shifted its master control switching facility to Jammu. Now it has got another excuse handy to shift its operations and terminate our jobs”, he added.

It is probably for the first time that the gunmen, widely believed to be the cadres of a formidable militant group but suspected by Geelani and other separatists as the “counter-terror cadres” mentioned by Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar, are translating their threat into action.

In the posters issued on the banner of ‘Lashkar-e-Islami’, commander Saifullah had, earlier this month, made it very much clear that the people who would show defiance to the diktat would be killed after the deadline of seven days “inside their homes”. He had described “telecommunication” as “one of India’s dirtiest conspiracies done in collaboration with the Western countries to weaken the jihadist movement”. “Because of this telecommunication, many of our able commanders were got arrested or martyred. Our movement and jihadist outfits have suffered great reverses because of it”, Saifullah said in the text.

Threatening death to the defaulters, the poster said that by their defiance the delinquents would “simply invite death”. “If you don’t shut down all these towers, supply and battery systems and recharge facilities, we will kill you after seven days inside your homes”.  After the four attacks, Aircel’s operations in Sopore have stopped completely while as towers are functioning but recharge handling has stopped in Baramulla and Pattan. Residents complained of “weak signals” and total disruption of Internet data services in Baramulla. They said that the operations of other service providers---Airtel, Idea, Vodafone and BSNL---had also suffered badly.

Aircel’s Kashmir Business Manager B.K. Kaul insisted that he had “no knowledge of the total closure of operations in Baramulla and Sopore. “I will check for the latest and get back to you”, Mr Kaul told State Times but he didn’t keep his word.

Notwithstanding the fact that Lashkar-e-Tayyiba and Hizbul Mujahideen have disassociated themselves from the incidents of the last five days, besides the separatist hardliner Syed Ali Shah Geelani’s outright condemnation, none of the separatist leaders or groups has called for a shutdown. “If they equivocally attribute these actions to Parrikar’s terrorists, what prevents them from issuing a call? Previously, they have put Kashmir on fire with such calls at the drop of a hat”, one Ghulam Hassan of Sopore pointed out. “Only the conduct of our separatist leaders makes it clear that it is all the handiwork of their militants”, he asserted.

Caught in an unenviable situation, Geelani on Wednesday evening reiterated that the offensive against telecom operators in Sopore and Baramulla was “terrorism” aimed at “defaming our movement”. He asserted that there should be an investigation as India, according to him, could exploit these attacks to stigmatize the separatist struggle.

Geelani said that the persons or the agencies involved in these types of incidents are not only the enemies of the humanity but they are also working against the freedom struggle of the Kashmiri nation and this act is purely a terrorist act. “The picture about the killers is unclear yet but the recent statement of the Indian defense minister Mr. Manohar Parrikar that ‘target killings and terrorism is the solution of the militancy in Kashmir’ gives birth to many questions and doubts and in this perspective we can’t rule-out the another angle of these actions that it may be the deliberate attempt to put the terrorist tag on the freedom struggle of Kashmiris”, he said.

Geelani described telecommunication as “a life line in the modern era and the life looks impossible without this system”. “It is no crime to work in this sector and it can’t be the base to kill anybody”. He said that the target killing of the employees and people related to the telecom companies in Sopore is “beyond the intellect and we fail to understand that who people and what objectives are behind these attacks?” He added: “Mujahideen organizations should also investigate these incidents at their own level and find out the real culprits and objectives hidden behind these attacks”.

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Militants shut cellphone business with 2 killings in 2 days in Sopore

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz
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SRINAGAR, May 26: A day after striking on a BSNL franchisee and killing one of his employees in broad daylight shootout in Sopore, suspected militants on Tuesday night shot dead a middle-aged civilian who had refused to close down a tower and a recharge outlet at his home in Dooru village. With this offensive, gunmen, widely believed to be the militants of Hizbul Mujahideen, have spread a wave of terror and rendered the entire cellphone business dysfunctional in the home constituency of the Hurriyat hardliner Syed Ali Shah Geelani who had, significantly, condemned Monday’s firing as an “act of terrorism”.

Informed official sources told State Times that two unidentified persons barged into the residence of 55-year-old Ghulam Hassan Dar at Dooru---Hurriyat Chairman Syed Ali Shah Geelani’s village in Sopore outskirts---at 9.30 p.m. One of them took out his AK-47 rifle and showered bullets on Dar, killing him on the spot. The assassins walked away without any resistance.

According to these sources, a militant group had directed Dar to close down the operation of an Airtel mobile tower on his premises besides a cellphone recharge outlet last week. However, Dar had ignored the diktat and continued his business. His defiance is believed to have provoked the militants to kill him.

Previously a militant of Hizbul Mujahideen, Dar had set up his small time businesses after his release from jail in 1998. Later, one of his four sons, Tanvir Ahmad Dar, contested Panchayat elections of 2011 and was elected as Sarpanch.

On Monday, suspected militants had attacked BSNL franchise of one Ghulam Mohammad Bhat at Noorbagh, in Sopore township. While as Bhat and one of his employees, Imtiyaz Ahmad Bhat of Achhabal, were critically injured in the firing inside their office on first floor of the building in the busy Shah Faisal Market, another employee---26-year-old Rafeeq Ahmad Bhat of Pohrupeth Handwara---died on the spot. The injured are under treatment at SMHS Hospital in Srinagar.

On Saturday, suspected militants had lobbed a hand grenade on the premises of another civilian at Kralteng, in Sopore township. It failed to explode but caused a wave of terror among the people associated with the mobile telephony operations. Last fortnight, suspected militants, had circulated posters in the name of “Lashkar-e-Islami”, believed to be a front name, asking everybody concerned in Sopore area to immediately close down mobile phone tower operations besides the cellphone recharge outlets.

Immediately after the broad daylight attack on Monday, most of the cellphone operations and recharge businesses of BSNL, Airtel, Aircel, Reliance, Vodafone and Idea Cellular came to a grinding halt in Sopore and the district headquarters of Baramulla. It has reportedly affected thousands of the pre-paid cellphone subscribers of different companies. Voice call and Internet services on pre-paid phones have been badly affected.

According to well-informed sources, militants have started the offensive immediately after a sophisticated wireless device, which they had secretly planted on the top of a tower, disappeared in mysterious circumstances. They have threatened the cellphone operators to either return the device or pay them a huge amount of money as “compensation” in case it had been seized by Police or any other government agency.

IGP Kashmir Javaid Mujtaba Gillani told State Times: “We have detected the improvised radio device on one BTS tower and seized it. Our investigation is underway as we have already questioned a number of people”. The IGP said that the device had been planted for relaying, receiving, boosting and transmitting voice calls of the militant network in Sopore-Baramulla-Pattan belt of North Kashmir. He said such equipment, made out of a conventional Kenwood-type radio set with a changed circuit, had been detected and seized in J&K for the first time.

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