GUJRAT, July 9: Unidentified people robbed Bokan telephone exchange near Jalalpur Jattan and made off with machinery, equipments, cables and accessories worth around Rs5 million on Friday night. Watchman told police that the gunmen entered the premises and tied him with a rope. They gathered all the equipments in around three hours, loaded it on to a truck and escaped, he added.

As a result of theft, phones of around 700 subscribers of Bokan, Mekan, Bhatian Bhulasar, Ugowal, Ghandra, Malhu Khokhar, Makiana, Dao, Sangrana and Jorra Jalalpur became silent.

It is the first robbery incident after privatization of the PTCL. Earlier, around 10 exchanges in Gujrat, Gujranwala, Chakwal, Jhelum and Rawalpindi had been robbed. The last major robbery incident was reported on June 21 at Karsal exchange in Jhelum from where robbers took away machinery worth Rs5 million.

OUT OF ORDER: Meanwhile, the PTCL staff have failed to rectify the fault in the line of Dawn correspondent. The phone (0537-510716), installed at his residence in Lalamusa, went out of order two weeks ago.

Residents of Umar Chak and Bhelot Makhdoom have been facing the same problem for the last three months allegedly due to two linemen of Kotla Sarang PTCL sub-exchange (Dinga exchange).

They alleged that linemen Arshad and Muzammil used to demand illegal gratification for restoring phones.

mines found: Two mines were found from the fields in Hazara Mughlan village in the limits of Karrianwala police station, some 50kms from here on Saturday.

Villager Muhammad Husain was ploughing in the field when he spotted the two mines and immediately reported the matter to police.

The bomb disposal squad from Gujranwala reached there to defuse the mines.