March 25, 2006	Saturday	Safar 24, 1427

Please Visit our Sponsor (Ads open in separate window).

KOHAT, March 24: The illegal sale of PTCL non-transferable wireless connections to Afghans living across the border is continuing through franchise dealers and local customers in the Kurram Agency, it is learnt.

A large Afghan community living in settled areas is already availing of the cellphone facility through fake ID cards or by buying it from locals.

A misuse of the facility has already been reported in some tribal areas.

The franchise dealers are selling connections at double the government rate and there is no restriction to carry the telephone set across the border.

Afghans can obtain the long distance connection for Rs7,000 to Rs8,000 against its actual price of Rs3,900. A large number of such connections have already been sold.

The signals from the Remote Based Station, installed particularly for the Kurram Agency, could be intercepted in Zazi, Shirino, Zigot, Zegar and other parts of the Paktia province of Afghanistan.

PTCL officials said that signals could be blocked from passing into Afghanistan by installing some gadgets at the border but they had not received any order to do so.

They said that one of the four towers of a cellphone company being installed at the Hangu-Kurram Agency border could also transmit signals into Afghanistan.

If the company or the government failed to check the illegal sale of cellphone connections the facility might fall into the hands of arms smugglers and drugs carriers.

An official said the Afghan families used the facility to keep in touch with their relatives across the border but admitted that the practice was illegal.

When Paktia was under the control of Abdur Rab Rasool Sayyaf and later fell to Gulbuddin Hekmatyar they had been provided with the PTCL facility at their headquarters. Even Nangarhar was accessible through PTCL during those days and consumers were charged local call rates. The service remained intact for some years after the Russian withdrawal from Afghanistan but it was later banned by Pakistan as warring factions were using it to communicate messages during the civil war.