Employees were forced to shutdown data centres due to frightening  situation: Palak

State Minister for Posts, Telecommunications and Information Technology Zunaid Ahmed Palak said the employees of three data centres in the capital's Mohakhali were forced to shut down during the quota reform movement.

He said there are three data centres in Mohakhali including Khawaja Tower. One of those (on the ground floor of the relief rehabilitation centre) was set on fire by terrorists. There was a frightening situation all around. Staff at two other data centres in the area were also forced to shut down.

Palak revealed the information at a press briefing at the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) on Sunday (July 28th) at 11 am, according to a local media outlet.

He said, "We suspended internet services to a limited extent in some areas on July 17 and 18 for security reasons. But on July 18, the rampage was carried out from 3 pm to 9 pm. At that time, a data centre on the ground floor of the relief rehabilitation centre in Mohakhali was completely burned. Data and technical analysis show that several identified terrorists carried out planned attacks there. Those who have already been arrested and the law enforcement agencies have already collected information from them.”

The state minister said CCTV footage showed that a terrorist group burned down the data centre in a planned way. The source of internet and power cables in the three data centres in the area were also burned. Then those who were working at the risk of life in those data centres were forced to shut down the data centre in a scary situation.

ICT Division Secretary Md. Akhtaruzzaman, Shamsul Arefin, BTRC Chairman Engineer Mohiuddin Ahmed, and other regulatory officials were present at the briefing, among others.