SHEIKHUPURA, May 15: Scores of PCO owners and operators of customer service centres fear loss of their investment after an abrupt suspension of the Fone 4-U service on Saturday. A number of ‘victims’ told Dawn that Ashfaq, Iftikhar and Khurram, executives of the Shahnoor Communications PVT Limited, had disappeared.

It is alleged that the accused, based in Sheikhupura, had already committed a similar ‘crime’ in 1996 after setting up a telecommunication business in the name of Awami PCOs. But no action had been taken against them by the authorities concerned at that time.

Victims, including owners of Al-Habibi customer centre, Friends customer centre and Waqas PCO, said that managing director Ishfaq was residing in Housing Colony, Sheikhupura, while his brother Iftikhar and their nephew Khurram had set up the company head office in Lahore and its branches in other parts of the country, mainly in the Punjab.

As license holders, they were authorized to install PCOs and customer service centres under the name of Fone 4-U.

They said the company would charge from its customer Rs26,000 for a PCO and Rs120,000 for a customer service centre having a facility of four telephone sets and a computer.

They said that the company was luring the customers by charging only Rs1.90 per unit as against the PTCL rates of Rs2.30 per unit. However, they said that authorities concerned did not bother to check this malpractice. Moreover, the company was the defaulter of millions of rupees of the PTCL for some three years.

In Sheikhupura district alone, they said that over 500 PCOs, including customer service centres, had been running for the last few years.

The company had established its network in Faisalabad, Lahore, Sargodha, Mianwali, Gujranwala, Rawalpindi, Hafizabad, Multan, Dera Ismael Khan, Jhang and various other cities and towns.

Sources said that MD Ishfaq had fled to England some two days ago while his brother, Iftikhar, incharge of the head office at Eden Centre, Lahore, and Khurram, incharge of Sheikhupura office, had also disappeared. All the branches, including the company’s head office, were found closed on Saturday and Sunday.

They apprehended that some government officials, particularly PTCL’s revenue department staff, were also involved in this scam of millions of rupees. They also criticized the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority for its ‘loose’ control.