SRINAGAR, Feb 25: The Union Ministry of Information & Broadcasting has sent a show cause notice to 13 television news channels on Monday for broadcasting the media briefing of Pakistan Army spokesperson Major General Asif Ghafoor on February 22. Major General Ghafoor had addressed a press conference at Rawalpindi where he said Pakistan wasn’t preparing for war but had the “right to respond” to India’s “preparations of war”.
The show cause notice has sent to 13 TV news channels across India including Tiranga TV, for not following the ministry’s advisory on February 14, after the suicide car bomb attack in Lethpora Kashmir that killed more than 45 CRPF and fuelled the war like situation between India and Pakistan, warning private channels to be cautious about content following the attack.
The I&B ministry advisory had cautioned media to be particularly careful about publishing and broadcasting content that: Likely to encourage or incite violence, contains anything against maintenance of law and order, promotes anti-national attitude and contains anything that affects the integrity of the nation.
The notice reads that the Tiranga channel had shown the media briefing for 20 minutes and 45 seconds with “no intervention” by the channel on the “correctness or otherwise of the claims” made in the briefing. By doing so, the notice reads that the said channel has violated Rules 6[1] (e) and 6[1] [h]of the Programming Code which had been mentioned in the advisory: carrying a programme likely to “encourage or incite violence or … anything against maintenance of law and order or which promotes anti-national attitudes”, and carrying a programme “which contains anything affecting the integrity of the Nation”.
The show cause notice also mentions that the channel did not attempt to intervene to present the correct picture of the situation when the Pakistan Army spokesperson was presenting incorrect facts.
Similar notices were reportedly sent to 12 other news channels also including ABP News, Surya Samachar, Tiranga TV, News Nation, Zee Hindustan, TOTAL TV, ABP Majha, News18 Lokmat, Jai Maharashtra, News 18 Gujarati, News24, Sandesh News and News18 India.
All these channels have been asked to respond without 7 days of the issue of the notice with a reason as to why the government should not initiate action against them. (Agencies)
