Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh’s appeal to protesting farmers to not damage telecom infrastructure seems to have failed to deter new attacks, with more than 176 signal transmitting sites being vandalised in the last 24 hours, sources said on Sunday. As many as 176 towers have been damaged since Saturday, two sources with direct knowledge of the matter said. Incidents of snapping of power lines to attempts to axe the towers have been reported from different parts of Punjab, one of the sources said. The second source said the telecom towers damaged belong to Jio and common access infrastructure of telecom industry. The attacks have impacted telecom services and operators are struggling to maintain services in absence of action by law enforcement agencies, the source said.

Source: The Hindu December 27, 2020 13:18 UTC