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Telenor user on Monday, al-Warid fan by Tuesday?

By Mansoor Khan

KARACHI: Twenty-five year old Umair Baig became a Telenor user on Monday but by Tuesday he had destroyed his newly acquired SIM card and replaced it with an al-Warid connection.

"I refuse to support anybody who offends my religion and my Prophet (PBUH)," he said, referring to the fact that Telenor is a Norway-based telecommunications company. "I bought an al-Warid connection because it is a Muslim-based organisation. I did not buy a Mobilink SIM card because it is an American company and if I had bought that my protest would have made no difference."

The growing agitation against European countries against the publication of the controversial cartoons has been on the rise in Karachi where Western products, including beverages, ice cream and mobile phone connections, have been boycotted.

Interestingly, several users Daily Times spoke to, said they were opting for al-Warid cell phone connections as it is a UAE-based company. These people told Daily Times that they will also refuse to use Mobilink because it is an American company.

On Tuesday, protests in Lahore and Peshawar turned violent and on Wednesday at an Ahle Sunnat protest rally in Karachi participants pelted shops with stones during a procession from Saddar to Gurumandir and Jamshed Road. Their main target remained the Telenor outlet in Saddar, which by the time of their arrival had been closed. The protesters still destroyed the franchise display outside the shop.

Telenor had reportedly ordered the closure of all 13 outlets around the city on Tuesday. Company employees said they had been receiving threatening phone calls as well as text messages sometimes from numbers belonging to other mobile phone companies and sometimes from Telenor numbers. A terrified Telenor employee Kashif said:

"We have removed our all signboards from our all franchises, while the company stopped all easy loading (account transfer facility) processes from Wednesday onwards."

Another Telenor employee, Aqeel said: "Our dealers have been receiving threats through different methods, such as text messages and pamphlets, asking people to boycott not only our product but also products from other European-based companies."

A Telenor dealer, who had been selling easy load credit, had his mobile shop, by the name of Shalimar Mobiles, ransacked in the Metroville area of the city. The dealer was warned earlier of dealing in Telenor accounts, but he had apparently ignored the warnings, people said.

Other Telenor dealers in Metroville have stopped selling Telenor cards because of this incident and have removed the company's signboards, they added.

The police were put on red alert on Tuesday through an order by the Sindh IG. Along with the rangers, the police fanned out across the city especially close to the offices of multinational companies.

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