Attempts made to sabotage our finances, alleges Airtel

Airtel`s Mumbai nodal officer alleges the repairmen were also attacked by unknown people

An assistant nodal officer of Airtel India has alleged that someone is trying to hurt the company's finances by disrupting its connectivity. According to the complaint filed at the Samata Nagar police station, the firm's optical fibre cable (OFC), which provides better connectivity to its customers, has been tampered with at over 50 locations in the northern suburbs of Mumbai.

Airtel's Mumbai Assistant Nodal Officer Prathmesh Manjrekar, 30, said that they discovered the tampering after receiving multiple complaints from the customers. People from North Mumbai called with complaints of slow internet speed, disturbance while speaking on the phone using the Internet. Thereafter, the company deployed its officers to the areas from where the complaints came.

During the inspection, Airtel officials found digging at 56 locations and the OFC was cut off. The company sent a team for repairs, but they were attacked by unknown people, Manjrekar stated in his complaint. He has alleged that this has been going on for almost a month now.

"We found that the cables were cut off. After they were repaired, cables were tampered with at another location. This has been happening for the past one month," Manjrekar told mid-day.

The Samata Nagar police have registered an FIR under Sections 323 (punishment for voluntarily causing hurt) and 504 (intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of the peace) of the Indian
Penal Code.

Manjrekar told mid-day that someone has also been disconnecting the Internet and DTH supplying OFC, affecting the service in the entire area. "Somebody is doing it on purpose. Optical fibre cable has been cut in 56 places in the past 20 days. Nowadays, most of the people are working from home. Due to the tampering their internet connectivity gets affected and they complain," he added.

He added, "Somebody is cutting off Airtel's optical fibre cables for the purpose of causing financial loss to the company, so we have filed a complaint with the police."

Senior Inspector of Samata Nagar police Raju Kasbe confirmed to mid-day, "Airtel's assistant nodal officer, Mumbai, has complained to us that someone is cutting their optical fibre cable. We have filed a complaint and are investigating the matter further."

A senior officer said, "The cables at the 56 places were not stolen after being cut off. There is a possibility that a particular gang is working at the behest of someone who is purposely working to harm the company and cause financial losses."

56
No. of locations the tampering has been allegedly done