KARACHI, April 5: Thousands of telephone connections went dead on Tuesday when cables of the Pak Capital Exchange were burnt by some unknown people setting fire to garbage. A spokesman for the PTCL told Dawn that out of the 60,000 connections of the exchange, 12,000 were affected. He claimed that inter-exchange traffic remained unaffected and no interruption was caused. However, PTCL subscribers told Dawn that even those not connected with the Pak Capital Exchange experienced trouble in making phone calls on Tuesday.

The PTCL spokesman said that 8,000 phones had been restored, adding that the rest of the connections would be restored within 24 hours.

He said the PTCL had lodged an FIR of the incident with the police.

Meanwhile, thousands of Mobilink subscribers remained incommunicado as their cellphone numbers remained inoperative on Tuesday.

A spokesman for Mobilink said the PTCL fibre optic link destroyed by fire on Tuesday was responsible for the breakdown of mobile phone communication. He claimed that even other cellphone operators were affected.

However, the PTCL spokesman said fire at the cables of the Pak Capital Exchange was in no way responsible for the breakdown of Mobilink connections.