Ban on Gujarat mobile internet services lifted

The Gujarat police lifted the ban on mobile internet services from midnight of Tuesday-Wednesday, a day earlier than what was originally planned, officials said here on Wednesday.

The ban on mobile internet had been imposed last Tuesday (August 25) when the Patidar Anamant Andolan Samiti (PAAS) had organised a mammoth rally of around a million Patel community members seeking caste-based reservations in education and jobs.

The rally ended with violence which lashed the state for the next two days and claimed 10 lives, besides hundreds getting injured and property worth several crores of rupees damaged or destroyed in the aftermath.

With a view to curb rumour-mongering and transfer of alarmist or inflammatory material, messages and pictures, the state government had banned mobile internet services.

This had blocked social networking sites like WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter on mobile phones that are commonly used for transmitting messages on the move by the people.

Earlier, the ban was imposed till Wednesday (September 2) but after a comprehensive review of the situation on Tuesday, the ban was lifted a day in advance.

The temporary ban was implemented in Ahmedabad, Surat, Vadodara, Rajkot, Jamnagar and other cities and towns hit by the violence last week.