Residents of Quetta and other cities in Balochistan continued to face difficulties on Monday as mobile internet services remained suspended for the third day in a row.
Mobile phone data was suspended two days ago due to a large-scale coordinated attack in the province. The military’s media affairs wing said terrorists of Fitna-al-Hindustan carried out a spate of attacks across Balochistan on Saturday, responding to which the security forces killed more than 150 terrorists.
The state has designated Balochistan-based terrorist groups as Fitna-al-Hindustan to highlight India’s alleged role in terrorism and destabilisation across Pakistan.
Balochistan’s Additional Chief Secretary (Home) Hamza Shafqaat told Dawn that the services would remain suspended today, but were expected to be restored tomorrow.
This is not the first time that the government has suspended internet services in Balochistan for security reasons: in November, it suspended mobile internet services in all 36 districts of the province for about a week.
Internet services were also suspended in Quetta for 24 hours on October 31, due to security concerns.
In recent months, the security situation in Balochistan has worsened, as militants, long involved in a low-level insurgency, have stepped up the frequency and intensity of their attacks.
According to a report published in January, Pakistan was leading the world in terms of financial losses suffered as a result of outages and shutdowns of internet and social media apps last year.
