Stop forthwith banned TV content in Kashmir

It is shocking how over 50 TV channels of Pakistan and Saudi Arabia are being beamed into homes in the troubled Kashmir valley and are stoking the fires of ‘azadi’ despite a ban on them. It speaks poorly of our monitoring mechanism which looked the other way for days and is even now not taking immediate action to stop these incendiary broadcasts and video footages. A mere issue of an advisory to the Kashmir government as done now to confiscate the equipment of such operators cannot be expected to tackle the problem. Instead, the Centre and the State need to act on a war footing to nip this mischievous activity in the bud. The prolonged passivity of the Mehbooba Mufti government in the face of such challenges shows that either it does not have the muscle to deter such activity or elements within it are hand-in-glove with the defaulters. Reports say Zakir Naik’s banned Peace TV preaching Salafist Islam, and others indulging in anti-India propaganda are running without necessary clearances via private cable networks in Kashmir. The PDP-BJP government even subscribes to these cable services in some of its offices and buildings, according to reports.

Although satellite television service providers like Tata Sky, Airtel digital TV and Dish TV are available in Kashmir, most people subscribe to private cable. An estimated 50,000 private cable connections are there in Srinagar alone, and mainly because these operators broadcast Pakistani and Saudi channels. No cable operator, anywhere in the country, including in Jammu & Kashmir, can run any channel other than the ones approved by the Union Information and Broadcasting ministry. If it is not in the permitted list of channels on the ministry website, it is being illegally broadcast. Even if it is a free-to-air channel, a private cable operator must get approval from the ministry. Some of the Saudi channels broadcast the same kind of fundamentalist and patriarchal interpretations of Islam and Sharia that invited a government ban on Peace TV. Wahhabi clerics on these channels often sermonise that women should surrender before their husbands and obey their commands completely. Most Pakistani news channels refer to the terrorists of Hizbul Mujahideen, Lashkar-e-Taiba and other terror groups as “martyrs” and counter-insurgency operations in Kashmir as “human rights violations.” It is high time that the concerned enforcement agencies come down hard on the errant cable operators. A tough approach against secessionists and separatists is the need of the hour.