International telephony, internet and private international data circuits went down when the submarine cable link was 'sabotaged' at 00:05am Thursday, a senior BTTB official confirmed, reports bdnews24.com.

It cut off Bangladesh from the rest of the world and intensified panic and confusion at home and abroad amid widespread violence across much of the country for days.

Bangladesh Telegraph and Telephone Board (BTTB), however, restored the country's only terrestrial overseas communication lifeline.

"This underground transmission link has been chopped at two different locations of Chunoti under Lohagara Upazila, 79 kilometres from Chittagong towards Cox's Bazar," BTTB's divisional engineer Aminur Rahman told the news agency.

The trans-national SEA-ME-WE4 submarine cable that has landed at Cox's Bazar.

The cable landing station has been connected with BTTB's international exchange in Dhaka via Chittagong through an optical fibre line that has been laid by the highway.

Rahman is personally supervising the damage control task.

BTTB's general manager of security and surveillance Lt. Col. Zia Safdar refuses to see it just as an accident.

"The Roads and Highways Department's (RHD) crew sometimes inadvertently cut the optical fibre transmission cable during maintenance and that is what we call an accident," he said.

"But in this case some unknown miscreants have dug the roadside soil at two close points and deliberately cut the cable."

Zia said there was no maintenance at the scene at the time. "The culprits have dug up a few more holes nearby to camouflage their misdeed."

But he could not say if this incident was part of the ongoing unrest.

"We have lodged a complaint with the police and the matter is being investigated with the help of local government representatives," the security chief said.

Such disruptions of the internet, international telephony and private international data circuits coincided with the government's unannounced shutdown of mobile phone network Thursday evening just before the indefinite curfew began.

Cable TV operators also shut down their services in many areas fearing the wrath of the authorities for showing 'violent contents' of the recent occurrences.

People got further panicked once the internet and overseas phone calls went down Thursday morning.

It also became impossible for the news agency to update its website. Many people contacted its newsroom to ask if such communication blackout is part of the government's measure.

But it was not possible to verify until authorities had allowed the mobile phone network back in business at 7:00 am Thursday.