NEW DELHI: Indians have slapped a ban on visit of foreign journalists to border areas, apparently in a move to drop an iron curtain on the dangerous situation along the Line of Control (LoC).
The special passes issued to the foreign journalists by Indian defence ministry are of no use any longer, as they stand cancelled, said an Indian defence official here.
Indians have not given any justification for this step. Foreign journalists were free to go to border areas since the situation began to hot up along LoC on May 26.
Their draconian decision comes on the heels of an earlier move to ban the cable transmission of PTV, which has evoked criticism in the Indian media. Leading Indian newspapers have made it a subject of their editorial comments and billed the jamming of PTV transmission as violation of people’s right to information.
Times of India in its editorial said, “apart from the dubious legality of the ban, which violates the right to information, New Delhi’s decision is also counterproductive for it will allow Islamabad to score an extra point in its propaganda war over Kashmir”.
It said, “a ban on cable transmissions will have absolutely no effect since those who wish to watch PTV can easily access terrestrial broadcasts.”
Information Minister Mushahid Hussain on Friday addressed a letter to Arif Nizami, President of Council of Pakistan Newspapers Editor (CPNE) and urged him to take up India’s reprehensible act of banning PTV with Indian and international media bodies.
“I would urge you to take up the matter as the elected representative of Pakistan editors with your counterparts in India and the rest of the world”, he said in his letter.
Mushahid said this is the first time after World War II that any country professing to be democratic has taken such “an extreme, arbitrary and reprehensible step”.
Meanwhile in a letter written to Ajit Kumar Bhattacharya, president, Editors Guild of India, CPNE president Arif Nizami said they have fought for freedom of press. He said ban on PTV programmes was matter of shock for the journalist community in Pakistan. He requested Bhattacharya to take up the issue with the Indian government.
Nizami further said “I am happy to say that Indian TV viewing in Pakistan despite what perceived to be its one-sided reporting of events in Kashmir, has not so far been subjected to any ban”. APP
Source: Business Recorder
Date:6/6/1999
