‘Sabotage’ causes net, telecom disruption in Bangladesh

By IANS

Dhaka : Internet and overseas telecommunications were disrupted in Bangladesh for the second time in a week, leading the government to suspect sabotage.


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The 15-hour disruption Tuesday was caused by miscreants snapping the optic fibre cable between Cox’s Bazar and Feni in the southern region from where the country gets access to the internet highway.

The state-run Bangladesh Telegraph and Telephone Board (BTTB) said this was the seventh “act of sabotage” aimed at disrupting the country’s international telecom and internet activities.

This disruption deprives the BTTB of $70,000 per hour, media reports said.

This is the 22nd disruption since the line was installed in 2006. Just two days ago, the line was snapped for several hours, The Daily Star said Wednesday.

Official sources said miscreants snapped the line at three points near Feni and took away 140 meters of the fibre optic cables.

“There is practically no resale value of this optical fibre cable. There is no copper or iron in it. Then why would anyone dig up the earth deep in the night to steal 140 metres of cable?” a BTTB official wondered.

The other incident had taken place hundreds of kilometres away from Feni – in Joaria Nala of Ramu, close to Cox’s Bazar. Here, the miscreants dug in 4.5 feet deep, broke a brick casing through which the cable was laid and then damaged the cable using a crowbar.

“It goes to confirm that someone made such an effort just to disrupt the line. But who could benefit from such a disruption?” the official asked.

Intelligence agencies and police have been unable to locate the source of ‘sabotage’ even after special deployment of personnel and investigations that began two months ago.

The Bangladesh Association of Software and Information Services (Basis), Bangladesh Computer Samity (BCS) and the ISP Association of Bangladesh have expressed concern about the repeated disruption.

They said this had a tremendous impact on all IT related work and outward communication from the country.

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