The Home Minister Mr P Chidambaram has called a meeting of the top executives of telecom service providers offering services in Jammu and Kashmir on Thursday to discuss various security—related issues with them.

“Union Home Minister will chair a meeting with Chief Executive Officers or Chief Operating Officers of telecom services providers providing services in Jammu & Kashmir on August 25,” a communique from the Ministry of Home Affairs said.

According to sources, the government will ask telecom companies to stop providing pre-paid services or provide the necessary infrastructure to monitor the communications. The meeting will be attended by senior executives from various operators, including Bharti Airtel CEO Mr Sanjay Kapoor, Vodafone Essar Cellular Managing Director Mr Sunil Sood and Reliance Communications CEO Mr C S Rao.

Telecom Secretary Mr R Chandrasekhar will also attend the meeting.

In trouble—torn Jammu and Kashmir, there are seven telecom players, including BSNL, Bharti airtel, Aircel, Idea, Reliance Communications, Tata Indicom and Vodafone. These telecom companies provide post—paid, as well as pre—paid mobile services in the state.

The state government had earlier banned SMSes following unrest in Kashmir last year. It, however, revoked the SMS ban on all post—paid connections on December 22, though the blanket ban on SMSes remains in the case of pre—paid services.

The Ministry of Communications had recently extended permission for continuance of pre—paid mobile services in Jammu and Kashmir, Assam and the North—East telecom service areas for a period of two years, subject to the condition that the existing security conditions and safeguards already stipulated by the licensor would continue to be adhered to.

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