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BTTB CELLPHONE LAUNCHING

Mobile crazy crowd damages sales centre

12 injured, subscription forms 'inadequate'

STAFF CORRESPONDENT
Violence marred the commercial launch of the state-owned Teletalk mobile phone yesterday, as aspiring subscribers damaged Ramna one-stop sales and service centre and the BASIC Bank counter, leaving at least 12 wounded.
At least a dozen people were hurt in two incidents of violence at Ramna and Sher-e-Bangla Nagar
one-point service centres. Teletalk started distributing subscription forms at 10 centres in the city yesterday.
Riot police and Armed Police Battalion were called in to tame the marauding crowd.
At least two persons were hurt when riot police clubbed restive form collectors who broke queue and stormed the Rahman Service FROM PAGE 20
Centre at Gulistan. Two others were injured when a large piece of door glass fell on them during the chaos.
At least five more people were injured at Sher-e-Bangla Nagar Exchange when a large piece of window glass fell on the crowd due to heavy rush.
People defied rain to line up in queues early in the morning at the 10 designated sales centre heavily guarded by law-enforcement agencies.
Saiful Islam, a deputy manager at BASIC Bank's Ramna branch, was injured when an unruly crowd stormed the bank for forms. One Zakir Hossain also received injuries during the incident. They were treated at Dhaka Medical College Hospital. Others injured were identified as Tushar and Shanta Ahmed. Many of the injured took first aid at the city hospitals.
FORMS INADEQUATE
Many blamed the violence on mismanagement of Teletalk authorities, as they said the forms distributed were inadequate in number.
Form distribution centres preliminarily received 200 forms against thousands of intending buyers in the
queue. Later, the Teletalk management sent additional forms, which also were inadequate for the huge demand, subscribers said.
Chaos ruled Nilkhet, Sher-e-Bangla Nagar and Maghbazar exchanges and other centres. Only Uttara Exchange distributed forms without any untoward incident.
A senior official of Bangladesh Telegraph and Telephone Board (BTTB), which manages Teletalk operations, said adequate number of forms will be available at all service centres next week.
Teletalk will initially sell 250,000 GSM mobile phones and has plans to raise the number to one million. Germany's Siemens and Chinese Huawei rolled out the network across the country.
Its network covers 55 of the 64 district headquarters apart from some national highways, officials said. They added 110 base transceiver stations out of the 570 have already been installed and 100 more will be set up soon.
Prime Minister Khaleda Zia soft-launched Teletalk cell phones on December 27, 2004.