Siliguri, Feb. 21: BSNL landline and mobile services in Siliguri and other parts of north Bengal were down from 11.30am today following the theft of optical fibre cables at Araria in Bihar and Raghunathganj in Murshidabad. Although BSNL could restore services by 3pm, the telecom major said it would take a couple of days to bring back the landlines in order.

“BSNL has more than 3 lakh mobile subscribers across north Bengal. Of this, more than 1 lakh subscribers are in Siliguri and the three hill subdivisions of Darjeeling Kurseong and Kalimpong,” said A. Dakua, the deputy general manager (operation) of BSNL’s Siliguri telecom district.

“We cannot immediately give details of how the cable theft took place. But all that we can say is that after the repair was carried out on a war footing, we could restore the network around 3pm,” said Dakua.

More than 500 landline subscribers could not make calls today after the underground copper cable theft at Sevoke Road area under Ashrampara Exchange.

“The theft of 800 pairs of underground copper cable has disrupted services in Ashrampara, Rajib More and along the right side of Sevoke Road,” said Dakua. “We are trying to restore the network as early as possible and hope that service will be back in order in a couple of days.”