The best way to market your product in violence-hit city like Karachi where everyday 10 people fall prey to the targeted violence in average is to terrorize the residents, Pakistan Today learnt on Wednesday.
This is what the cable operators are doing in the city to discourage new competitors for maintaining their monopoly by creating a fear in hearts and minds of the consumers that there could be a dacoit in the guise of a cable operator.
You may see a slide at your TV screens that some people have started looting houses in Karachi in the guise of new cable operators. These slides are being run by the cable operators warning the people if a new a cable operator comes to your door with offer of low rates, don’t believe him as he could be a dacoit.
However, the law enforcers claimed they did not receive a single complaint in any part of city wherein dacoits looted a house by impersonating themselves as cable operators.
All Pakistan Cable Operators Association (APCOA) Chairman Khalid Arain said this was just propaganda of old cable operators to close market for the new comers.
Some extremists in parts of the city looted houses in the guise of cable operators by seducing consumers for lower rates. They warned consumers not to trust new cable operators and have confidence in old cable operators as they earned well repute over the past many years.
“There are only three authorised cable operators in DHA which are Magnum, Delta and World Call,” said Waqas, a local cable operator in DHA running his business under Magnum Communication with the name of King Multimedia Plus.
“All big cable operators started this campaign last year as there is a large number of illegal cable service providers working in the locality. To date, no such incident has been reported that robbers entered in anyone’s home in DHA and looted residents.”
APCOA Chairman Khalid Arain contradicted his own version as initially he termed it a propaganda of old cable operators but later on he added: “Old operators were compelled to run this campaign to avoid loss of number of consumers as the new comers are providing best services against low rates”.
Arain, who is also among board of directors of the city’s biggest cable operators company, Media Plus Communication, when forced to recall that this campaign was started by his company, he changed his statement and said many years ago some people looted a house in the limits of Brigade police in the guise of new cable operators which forced them to run such slides as a security measure.
“After this, no such incident was reported in the city and now cable operators use this tool to block market for new cable operators to maintain their monopoly in their respective areas,” he added.
New Karachi Superintendent of Police (SP) Syed Salman Hassan, said he did not receive any complaint in his tenure. “Cable operators are usually well-known in their areas and the residents can identify them easily,” the SP added.
