Internet service has been restored in four districts of Jharkhand where the service was suspended in the wake of a communal clash at Barhi in Hazaribagh district on Sunday.
Life came to a standstill in four districts Hazaribagh, Chatra, Giridih and Koderma, where the Internet service was stopped by the police to stop any spread of rumour.
“The service was restored around 3 PM. We remained cut-off from the outside world. With this, the services like banking, online classes, media and others were affected due to suspension of the service,” said Md Sarfaraz, a native of Chatra district.
Another resident of Hazaribagh district involved in the online marketing said that for two days his work remained affected. But, he said that the full internet service has not been restored so far.
“The Internet service of the two private operators namely Jio and Airtel had completely stopped. I tried BSNL for some emergency work but it did not work well. The service has not been fully restored,” he said.
A media person of Hazaribagh said that he could not send the news to the head office in Ranchi due to the internet issue. “It was even difficult to bring the local edition of the newspaper. This is not the way the government should behave,” he said.
Tension broke in Hazaribagh during the immersion procession of the idol of Goddess Saraswati. A boy was allegedly murdered and eight others were injured during the clash after which the police decided to suspend internet to maintain the law and other.
The BJP criticised and said that such steps showed the failure of the government to maintain law and order.
“As the government failed to maintain the law and order, it curtailed the freedom of expression of people,” said Jharkhand BJP president Deepak Prakash.
However, Congress leader Alok Dubey termed allegations as baseless and said that the police took the decision to maintain law and order.