Telephone connections in Kathankudy cut ‘mysteriously’

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 08 April 2003, 20:34 GMT]
Within the last week, the telephone cables have been mysteriously cut in three regions of the Batticaloa district. In the Kathankudy area, the cables were methodically cut at several important locations on Saturday and thousands of telephone connections were lost, sources said.

The manager of the Kathankudy regional telecommunication exchange said that Telecom customers in Kathankudy, Araiyampathy, Palamunai, Thalankudah, Puthukudiyiruppu and Kirankulam had informed him about loss of service to their homes.

The public said that there is a rumor that the mysterious cutting of cables is happening due to collusion between certain people, as this would affect certain private operators of telephone services disproportionately.

Similar cutting of cables happened in Chenkalady on March 30 and in Thandavanveli inside the Batticaloa Municipal limits on April 3. Hence the public suspicion that there is some business motive behind the disruption, possibly competition among private telephone operators.

Regardless of the motive, the public wants the perpetrators brought to justice and complains that the police, despite being authorized by the government to take action against such illegal acts, are not doing anything to find the culprits. The affected businessmen, the public and civil administrators have raised their concerns on this matter and said they will cooperate with telecom customers to stop the disruption of service.