Railway stations across Bangladesh were disconnected from the internet for more than an hour on Saturday causing sales of train tickets to be halted.
Thousands of customers queuing to buy advance tickets for Eid journeys home at Dhaka’s Kamalapur Railway Station faced difficulties from 10:30am to 11:45am as internet problem interrupted sales.
Bangla Tribune correspondents across the country reported that ticket sales at railway stations were interrupted during that time.
Sources at an intelligence agency say they suspect a conspiracy as the Chattogram Railway Station suffered a similar outage on Friday, which lasted from 1 hour 40 minutes.
Bangla Tribune’s Chattogram Correspondent Humayun Masud said the rail station authorities told them “someone had blocked their server”.
The Bangladesh Railway, however, said that internet was disrupted due to a ‘cut in the fibre optic cable’.
According to people familiar with the matter, the railway told intelligence agency that the cable was cut in two locations. But the similar explanation for Friday’s outage in Chattogram stoked a suspicion.
They say it might be a conspiracy to leave the government in a tight spot ahead of the Eid-ul-Azha.
Kamalapur Railway Station Manager Sitangshu Chakravarty told Bangla Tribune that counters opened at 8am and around 10:30am, a glitch with ticketing server erupted causing sales to halted for an hour.
Bangla Tribune could not reach Bangladesh Railways Director General Amzad Hossain and Chief Commercial Officer Shafiqul Islam on phone despite several attempts.
No one from Computer Network Systems Ltd, responsible for providing internet connectivity to Bangladesh Railway, was not available for a comment.
Intelligence sources said inputs had suggested sabotage on railways before the Eid-ul-Fitr held on Jun 16, when it was advised to watch political elements in Bangladesh Railway.

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