AP News, March 7th, 2007
There will be no more "Desperate Housewives" for residents of Indian Kashmir. They will have to do without "Friends" reruns, too.
Four foreign television channels have been pulled from the air in Indian-controlled Kashmir after Islamic militant groups demanded cable companies stop airing "obscene" shows, cable operators said Wednesday.
"As militants have asked us to stop airing obscene channels, we've suspended broadcasting English channels like HBO, Star Movies, Star World and Sony Pix," said Muzaffar Ahmed, a TV cable operator in Srinagar, the summer capital of India's Jammu-Kashmir state.
On Sunday, two militant groups in a telephone call to a local news agency, Current News Service, advised TV cable operators to drop channels that the groups say spread obscenity.
The groups _ Al-Badr Mujahedeen and Al-Madina _ did not specify which channels they were referring to.
"We took the decision after a meeting of all local cable operators in Srinagar," Ahmed told The Associated Press.
The content of the channel's broadcasts in India is already pretty tame compared to other countries in order to comply with India's stringent censorship laws. Obscenities are bleeped out and hints of nudity blurred. Other scenes are cut entirely.
Cable operators were taking no chances.
Last year, a bomb blast rocked the office of a cable TV provider in the town of Sopore, 30 miles north of Srinagar. One person died in the explosion and the company's third-floor office was badly damaged by the blast. The lone cable operator in the town later halted telecasts.
Police said no formal complaints had been received from cable operators.
However, some of them have informed police about the threats, said Farooq Ahmed, a deputy-inspector general of police in Srinagar.
"Nevertheless, we've stepped up foot patrols around TV cable offices," he said.
Nearly a dozen Islamic rebel groups have been fighting since 1989 for Kashmir's independence from mostly Hindu India or the region's merger with predominantly Muslim Pakistan. More than 68,000 people have been killed in the conflict.
