Airtel has written to the telecom department against Reliance Jio’s purported allegation that rival telcos had a hand in provoking agitators involved in tower disruption.

Airtel has called the charges baseless and outrageous. It has told the department of telecom (DoT) that Jio’s allegations against it did not demonstrate any evidence that Bharti had any hand in the ongoing issues that the Reliance company was facing, and that the complaint should be dismissed “with the contempt that it deserves”.

The letter by Airtel to telecom secretary Anshu Prakash said the company was aware of a complaint made by Reliance Jio to the department dated December 28, in reference to the disruption of RJIL (Reliance Jio) services in Punjab and Haryana because of the farmers’ protests.

“The baseless allegation made by Jio that Airtel is behind the farmer agitation to ‘sabotage’ their network and to force customers to switch to Airtel is therefore simply outrageous,” Bharti Airtel’s chief regulatory officer Rahul Vatts said in the letter to the DoT.

Jio’s letter to the DoT had purportedly claimed that the “majority of the current sabotage and damage of RJIL network in Punjab, Haryana and some other parts of the country is as a result of the blatant efforts by some of the distributors, retailer and channel partners of Airtel and VIL (Vodafone) in a malicious and inciteful campaign to capitalise on the ongoing farmers’ protest”.

A mail sent by PTI to Jio did not elicit a response.

A VIL spokesperson said the company deplored the “false and baseless allegations”.