Over 600 mobile network towers have been switched back on in Jammu and Kashmir’s Sopore area after a string of militant attacks forced mobile operators to shut them down and severely restrict wireless communication, police said on Wednesday.
Gun-toting militants had carried out a series of attacks on mobile towers, lobbing grenades and threatening operators, last month.
Police said that 609 mobile towers, out of 1,058 shut down after militant threats, have started functioning again in the worst affected Sopore area, which is fifty km from Srinagar.
According to a police survey, the gunmen’s threats to mobile telephone operators affected 12 districts of the valley, both in north and south Kashmir. However, in Sopore area police have succeeded in restoring 59 out of 175 affected towers in the township where only two were operational.
Besides Sopore, Handwara and Baramulla have also been affected.
In the capital Srinagar, where a grenade was lobbed at a tower on Monday, 141 towers out of 714 were switched off. However, police claimed to have restored 91.
Following the attacks, the United Jehad Council(UJC), a conglomerate of 13 militant outfits, had asked mobile operators to resume functioning across the valley. “There are black sheep using the name of militant groups and people must unmask them,” UJC spokesperson Syed Sadaqat told a Srinagar-based news agency.
“Wherever such traitors harass respected people, telecom companies, and people associated with it, people should catch hold of them and punish them,” he said.
Moderate Hurriyat chairman Mirwaiz Umar Farooq has condemned the attacks, while Hardline Hurriyat chairman Syed Ali Geelani described the attackers as “enemies of people and their struggle”.
