Dhaka: Bangladesh has reversed its decision of shutting down mobile networks along the country’s over 4,000 km-long borders with India, two days after asking telecom operators to block the services citing ‘security’ reasons, according to media reports here Wednesday.
The Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) had directed Sunday the shutdown of around 2,000 base transceiver stations, affecting around one crore users in 32 districts that share border with India and Myanmar.
The government’s directive to the telecommunication operators came days after India’s Parliament passed the controversial Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), causing much concern in Dhaka that it could lead to an influx of migrants from India.
The reports did not give any reason for reversing the earlier decision.
Jahurul Haque, BTRC chairman confirmed the latest decision to reverse the restrictions, ‘bdnews24.com’ reported.
According to ‘The Daily Star’, the authorities sent an email to all the mobile operators early Wednesday, asking them to restore the networks.
“Please reinstate operations of the BTSs (Base Trans-Receiver Stations) near the Bangladesh-India boarder sites immediately,” the email, by Md Sohel Rana, deputy director of BTRC’s spectrum management division, said.
Mobile operators also confirmed that they have started to up their network again but it will take about a day to fully reinstate the connections as some of the towers are in very remote areas.
“As per the directive from BTRC, we have already started reactivating the BTSs located along the border areas. The reactivation process will take a while to complete since a lot of BTSs are involved here,” Shahed Alam, chief corporate and regulatory officer of ‘Robi Axiata Ltd’, was quoted as saying by the ‘The Daily Star’.
Earlier, Post and Telecommunication Minister Mustafa Jabbar told ‘The Daily Star’ that the networks were blocked as the security of the state is the government’s first priority. He clarified that the decision was not taken by his ministry and they just carried it forward.
PTI