Abid Hafiz
SRINAGAR, Sept 2: The clamour for lifting the ban on Short Message Service (SMS) is growing louder day by day especially from the young in Kashmir, a conflict-torn region where now violence is on a decline after it erupted more than two decades ago, killing tens of thousands.
Cellular service users in Jammu and Kashmir were barred from sending text messages through their mobile phones since 2010, when a huge popular uprising began in the Kashmir valley and subsequently more than a hundred people, mostly young men, were killed in firing by police or paramilitaries.
The central government had suspended the service blaming protestors of using the facility to “incite violence and spread rumours” and causing the protests to intensify in the volatile region.
Although the ban on messaging has been lifted on post-paid cellular services, it continues to remain in effect for the pre-paid users, nearly five million of them in the state.
Now, with two largely peaceful summers and booming tourist seasons, ordinary people feel the ban was no longer needed.
“We have been deprived of SMS facilities for the last two years. Although we can send messages to our friends and families who are working outside state on social networks, but authorities still want us to forget SMS service which was handier and a more common tool for communication among youth,” says Suheem Ahmad, a student at the Kashmir University.
“Not everybody has internet facility,” he adds.
Auqib Ahmed, another student, says the ban weighed heavily upon his circle of friends.
“It was the easiest and certainly the cheapest way of being in touch with friends. I had also subscribed to Islamic alerts and various news services through which I updated myself without exerting any effort. But now I find it cumbersome to use my computer to know about things,” he says.
“I don’t understand if the CM says that the dark days are over, why aren’t they lifting the ban on SMS?”
However, authorities hint that the ban is unlikely to be lifted in the near future.
“We have not received any directions from the central government to revoke the ban from pre-paid SMS services till now.” said Minister for information and technology, Aga Syed Roohullah.
Sources say the authorities are skeptical about the peaceful conditions prevailing in the valley and want to take no chances with the law and order situation by resuming the messaging facility.
