SMS blocked hours after lifting of curbs

SRINAGAR: SMS services were withdrawn as a “precautionary measure” hours after the government restored post-paid mobile connections in Kashmir, officials said on Tuesday.

Mobile phone services for post-paidsubscribersresumedin Kashmir after 72 days on Monday noon, but without any internet facilities. By about 5 pm, SMS services had been suspended too, dulling the euphoria of about 40 lakh subscribers delighted at the prospect of their phones coming back to life, officials said.

“SMS services were stopped last evening as a precautionary measure,” said an official withoutelaboratingfurther. Twoterrorists, including a suspected Pakistani national, shot dead the driver of a Rajasthan truck and assaulted an orchard owner in Jammu and Kashmir’s Shopian district around 8 pm on Monday.

Police said the deceased was identified as Sharief Khan and the terrorists carried out the attack in Shirmal village in desperation as fruit transportation was picking up in the Valley.

Phones fell silent on August 5, when the Centre revoked Jammu and Kashmir’s special status and reorganised the state into two union territories. The government kept to its promise of mobile phones working by Monday noon, but the joy was short-lived. Thousands of subscribers found their services disconnected by telecom companies due to nonpayment of bills for the period of the suspension of services.

Till late Monday evening and from early Tuesday, serpentine queues formed outside the offices of telecom companies as subscribers rushed to clear their outstanding bills.

It is a cumbersome process with online payments not an option because of internet services being blocked in Kashmir, many subscribers complained. While landline phones were restored last month, internet services on all platforms continue to remain suspended.

Over 25 lakh prepaid mobile phones and other internet services, including Whatsapp, remain deactivated for now, officials said.