Protest against police raids for airing adult movie content.
MUMBAI: Cable operators in the city stopped airing all paid channels on Monday night. Only free-to-air channels like Doordarshan were on air. The move came after police raided eight cable operators and three multi-system operators, including Hathway, Siticable and In Cablenet, and seized transmission equipment.
Police conducted the raids after it was asked by the Bombay high court last week whether action had been taken against operators who continue to show films certified ‘A’.
The court had banned adult content from TV following a public interest petition filed by St Xavier College lecturer Pratibha Naithani.
Ganesh Naidu, president of the Cable Operators’ Association, told DNA that they had gone off air in protest against the “high-handedness” of TV channels. “Why should cable operators suffer for the negligence of the broadcasters?” he said. “We are not responsible for monitoring content. Channels should be held accountable for objectionable material, not us.”
DCP (Enforcement) Sanjay Apranti said, “We stopped the airing of HBO, STAR Movies, AXN, Sahara One, Sahara Filmy, SET Max, Zee Cinema, STAR Gold, and STAR World. Nearly 122 censored programmes were aired for which show-cause notices will be issued to the cable and multi-system operators.”
Naidu dismissed the charge that operators were holding customers to ransom. “We are the ones facing harassment from the broadcasters,” he said. “Besides, we have not stopped airing free-to-air channels so that our customers don’t feel the pinch.”
He said the protest will go on for as long as required: “We will approach the high court and the police commissioner with our grievances on Tuesday.”
