Aircel customers staging a road roko out in Trichy on Tuesday. (TOI photo by R Baskar)

TRICHY: Customers of Aircel blocked roads in Trichy on Tuesday as employees of the troubled telecommunication operator were not reachable to provide mobile number porting service.

A large number of people waited outside locked offices of Aircel in the city. They said they badly needed to retain their mobile numbers as they were linked to Aadhaar and bank accounts.

D Manikandan, a resident of Samayapuram, said, “Yesterday I was standing in a serpentine queue outside the Aircel office on the Royals Road. After hours, I was given a token by an executive with Aircel and was told to visit the office on Tuesday morning. But today, the office is closed.”

After waiting for hours outside the Aircel offices, people staged road blockade near Thillai Nagar and Woraiyur. Police personnel pacified the protesters. Though people withdrew the road roko protests, they refused to disperse.

“We could not reach Aircel executives. So we managed to rope in a few executives of other telecom service providers to help the people waiting outside Aircel offices to port their numbers,” said a police officer.

