Officials of Bangladesh Telecommunications Company Limited could not check the official red telephone at BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia’s Gulshan 2 residence as they could not enter the house as of Sunday evening.
“Our staff members are still in front of the residence of the leader of the opposition; if they get the permission, they can check the phone and find out the problem,” Mohammad Morshed, an official spokesperson of the BTCL, told the Dhaka Tribune at 6:45pm on Sunday.
“We are contacting the government officials at the leader of the opposition’s residence, but they could not yet give us the consent to enter the house,” he said.
On Saturday, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina called Khaleda on the red telephone several times, but the BNP said the telephone had been dead for a long time, which is why the opposition leader could not receive the call.
The BTCL spokesperson said there had been no complaint about the phone at Khaleda’s residence; they had
also found no problem in the line and the exchanges at the ends of the prime minister and the opposition leader.
He said they had also checked the telephone cabinet in front of Khaleda’s residence.
The government established the digital red telephone exchange at the Prime Minister’s Office in 2009, having 3,000 connections.
