Militancy threat in N-E forces telecom cos to shut operations

Threats from militant organisations have resulted in suspension of mobile services in the North-Eastern state of Manipur, thus severely affecting thousands of subscribers. 

For past few months militant outfits have been targeting mobile companies and the companies operating mobile towers to squeeze out money through extortion notices and threats. The things took an ugly turn in recent days when two guards of a mobile tower were gunned down by militants as the mobile tower company wasn’t obeying the militant organisation’s extortion diktats. Since then, most of the mobile towers kept shutting down, thus resulting in suspension of mobile services in the state.  

“The tower operators are facing severe extortion threats from various militant outfits for some time now. The militant groups are now targeting security guards and have killed two of them recently. The situation has deteriorated so much so in recent days that tower operators had to suspend operations. So the sites are down and services are affected across the state,” said a senior official of Bharti Airtel.  

Besides state owned BSNL, five other private telecom companies, viz.; Airtel, Aircel, Vodafone, Reliance and Tata Indicom, operate in Manipur and services of almost all the operators have been affected.  

Top officials of the mobile companies are expected to meet the Manipur chief minister soon and petition him.  

The private sector in Manipur is almost non-existent, thanks to the militant groups. The few mobile companies, which are the last vestiges of organised private sector in Manipur and have social obligations to cater, too are now ruthlessly targeted by these groups.

The heightened militancy, which has by now very well transformed into an extortion business, is a worry for the state of Manipur as it is eating into every vitals of the state. Militant outfits in Manipur even don’t spare doctors, teachers, and media organisations while serving extortion threats. The situation is so severe that often newspapers go off the stand, and doctors and teachers sit on dharnas to protest extortion threats of militants.