Several residents of Shahpur-Kandela village in Haryana’s Jind briefly blocked the Jind-Chandigarh Highway late on Monday evening in protest against the continued suspension of the internet services in the area for the past four days.
Soon after the Haryana government announced to extend the suspension of the Internet services in seven districts, including Jind, till February 2, a large number of local villagers gathered on the Jind-Chandigarh road around 8 p.m. and blocked the traffic.
The angry villagers demanded that the Internet services be immediately restored.
Kaptan Singh Redhu, a resident of Shahpur, said the government’s action was aimed at preventing the spread of information regarding the growing farmers agitation, but it was undemocratic. He added that the suspension of Internet services had also hit the students preparing for various competitive examinations.
The local police reached the spot after they got the news of the blockade and convinced the locals to allow the traffic. “The road was blocked only for a few minutes. The police managed to convince the locals to lift the blockade,” said Inspector Dinesh Kumar, Station House Officer, Jind (Sadar).
Haryana Government had on Monday extended the suspension of mobile internet services (2G/3G/4G/CDMA/GPRS), SMS services (only Bulk SMS) and all dongle services etc. provided on mobile networks except the voice calls in the territorial jurisdiction of seven districts namely Kaithal, Panipat, Jind, Rohtak, Charkhi Dadri, Sonipat and Jhajjar till 5 pm on February 2.
