Some people do not believe in celebrating the Prophet's birthday and a few of those people choose to stop everyone from celebrating it even if it means hurting people and forcing their rule on them. Banning cellphones prevents people from getting hurt. It's as simple as that.

Maybe i'm not as brilliant as the people who conjure up such novel ideas, but I just can't seem to grasp as to how blocking cellular coverage and banning pillion riding can curb terrorism. If that is the intended purpose of these actions, then won

Why such stringent measures to celebrate a festival of the religon of peace?

This is not the first time this has happened...you can see the authorities doing so from time to time....and i tell you guys that's a very bad signal to the over see investors....This is the failure of the intelligence agency so to make things easy they go this...but it will hurt you guys very hard....Who would come to a place which cant guarantee you 24*7 connectivity leave alone the other stuff like infrastructure...etc.

Unregistered Sims must be closed for ever without fail immediately. Cells phones, all self phones through out country must be closed from dust to dawn, business and resident telephone stay active.

what's the purpose of these processions? just yesterday 4 people have lost their lives including 2 police officials. did the Prophet (PBUH) said to us to behave this way on his supposed birthday? can the mullahs first of all agree on one date which is perhaps today perhaps tomorrow or perhaps was yesterday or the other month or the coming month? in the whole muslim world there isn't this kind of show put in the name of Prophet? late night musical concerts (milads) with full disco beats and shouting on the loudspeakers in the mosque was the norm of the last week here and will perhaps stay until beyond this month. people can't talk over the phones to know where their loved ones are, they can't coordinate with each other in emergency due to cell phone suspension neither would be able to bring someone sick to hospitals due to road blockages. what are we getting out of this? what is the fault of hindus or christians listening to these disturbing activities without any consent - if they are criticized by ""un-islamic"" events like Diwali and Christmas why is that we aren't being? where are all the dawn readers who love to comment on every political rally but can't spare one line condemning this medieval zeal gone wild.

yes going back to stone age.no gas, no electricity, no water,no phones, time to buy pigeons. this govt has the dual quality of being corrupt but also most INCOMPETENT AS WELL.

Why?

How will this help ?

The question is why the PTA has to do it. Because despite dirctives from the government it could not build the capacity to enforce measures which could identify each and every cellphone SIM holder and the caller. I wonder what is the difficulty in containing the anonymous SIMs and forcfully rendering the unregisterd SIMs blocked for ever. May be there too involved is the vested intersted which in connivance with the mobile operators does not want to curb the malice of annonimity the miscreants and the suicide attackers enjoy in perpetrating their anti-social activities. The solution lies inter alia in digitalizing all personal identification data of the citizens of Pakistan and making that data available to the investigating agencies working in the country through the implementation of specific privacy protocols in order to minimise the intrusion into the personal freedoms and privacy issues of the citizens. But at the present scenario the country needs emergency response on the part of the government in dealing with failure of providing security to the masses. In such a case blocking the mobile service is less inconvenient and more important than jeopardizing the lives of the people by allowing the mobile service.

why such step taken. I suppose mobile services are needed more at some festival/function. Could not understand Poor Pakistan aadmi :(