Pakistan's Supreme Court bans airing of Indian content on TV channels due to 'disputed Kashmir region'

Pakistan’s Supreme Court has banned airing of content produced from India on TV channels on Saturday, and had set aside the earlier order of the lower court, said the officials.

Chief Justice Saqib Nisar had issued the order in Karachi while he was hearing a petition filed by the producer’s association, which was related to the broadcasting of foreign content on the television channels of Pakistan.

Pakistan’s newspaper the Dawn reported that the judge referenced clashes with India over the construction of the planned Diamer-Basha dam in the country’s north, located in territory disputed by Delhi, as a reasonable justification.

An officer of PEMRA (Pakistan Media Regulatory Authority) said Justice Nisar ordered “stop airing all Indian content on TV channels”. The ruling covers terrestrial, satellite and cable channels, as reported by the Hindustan Times.

The chairman of Pakistan Cable Operators, Khalid Arain, had hit out at the order but confirmed it as well. He told AFP that “Ban on the all the Indian content is not the solution, rather we should try to better the quality of Pakistani TV shows.”

Earlier, the Lahore High Court in 2017, had lifted the ban on the Indian content and TV shows which was earlier imposed on the competitive authorities in October 2016 as the tension between the two nuclear armed countries had grown over the Kashmir’s disputed region. Hence, India also banned the Pakistani artists from performing in India in a tit for tat strategy.

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