April 21, 2007	Saturday	Rabi-us-Sani 03, 1428

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LAHORE, April 20: The service of Ufone and Internet remained suspended for more than 20 hours in parts of Lahore and Gujrat when some ‘unscrupulous elements’ reportedly cut the PTCL fibre optics here on Friday.

Hundreds of users faced inconvenience throughout the day and tried to contact its help line for inquiry but it was also not responding, reportedly owing to the problem. “Earlier in the day, I thought it was a routine connectivity problem, but as neither the outgoing call nor SMS facility was working, it troubled me a lot,” said Ufone subscriber Hasan Raza.

Officials said the PTCL fibre optics was damaged on Zafar Ali Road, Gulberg, early on Thursday morning. “That point provides up-linking to the Ufone and Internet service in parts of Lahore and Gujrat.” They, however, ruled out the possibility that any of their competitors was involved in the damage.

They claimed the company had rerouted the cell phone connections of the affected areas, especially in Gujrat. However, in Lahore the problem existed in several parts till the filing of the report at 9pm.

Similarly, on Thursday morning, the PTCL main cable in Karim, Nizam, Raza, Omer, Kamran, Nishter, Sikandar and Ravi blocks of Allama Iqbal Town (Multan Road telephone Exchange) was also cut, rendering a large number of connections out of order.

A PTCL spokesman said the staff concerned inspected the point and found that it was also a work of some ‘unscrupulous elements’ as there had been no digging of the road by the civic authorities. He claimed that the damage to the main cable in Iqbal Town had caused a loss of millions of rupees to the company. An FIR had been lodged with police and the staff was busy restoring the connections, he added.