Telephone wire theft rampant in Dinajpur
A large mumber of subscribers want to snap connections
Around nine thousand metres of telephone wire of Bangladesh Telecommunications Company Ltd (BTCL) were stolen from different areas under Dinajpur municipality from August 1 to October 30, BTCL official sources said.
"My BTCL line cables were stolen two times in a month," said Md Akram Talukder, a land phone subscriber at Bahadurbazar of Dinajpur municipality.
"It took 20 days to restore my telephone connection," said Md Rezaur Rahman, a resident of Patuapara in the town.
There are 12,967 telephone subscribers under Dinajpur BTCL exchange but a large number of them submitted applications to cancel their subscription as frequent cable stealing and other problems have become a nagging problem for them, sources said.
The situation threatens revenue earning by the state-owned phone company.
When telephone cables are stolen, subscribers have to bear its expenses to restore the connection, said several affected people.
On October 13 this year, the BTCL authority filed a complaint to the superintendent of police of Dinajpur regarding frequent stealing incidents of BTCL telephone cables in the district down.
The BTCL officials of Dinajpur also reported the matter at the monthly law and order meeting held at Dinajpur Deputy Commissioner's office on October 30, sources said.
The BTCL authority filed another complaint on November 3 mentioning specific numbers, length of cables and areas.
"Cable stealing incidents have risen in the district in recent months. We have not seen any improvement even after filing the complaints," said a BTCL official seeking anonymity.
"Frequent cable stealing badly affects service of the company. We filed two complaints at Dinajpur police superintendent's office within a month," said Md Ziaul Karim, divisional engineer of Dinajpur BTCL.
Several victims of cable stealing incidents also filed general diaries with Dinajpur police station.
However, Dinajpur Superintendent of Police Md Mainul Islam said that the BTCL authority of Dinajpur is yet to file any complaint to them.
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