Pakistan bans all India TV channels

Two days after India's movie industry body banned Pakistani artists and technicians from working in India, Islamabad yesterday banned the broadcast of all Indian television channels in Pakistan, ANI reported.

Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA) said strict action would be taken if TV channels and distribution networks failed to implement the ban after October 15. It said it has been receiving complaints that several local private channels were showing Indian talk shows, reality programmes and dramas without permission.

To protest the September 19 terror attacks in Uri, the Indian Motion Picture Producers Association (IMPPA) on Thursday passed a resolution banning Pakistani actors and technicians from working in India until relations between the two countries returned to normal.

In retaliation, Pakistani cinemas have already stopped screening Indian films in "solidarity" with the country's armed forces. Nadeem Mandviwalla, whose Mandviwalla Entertainment runs eight cinemas in Karachi and in the capital, Islamabad, told Reuters on Friday that the ban in Pakistan was in response to the IMPPA ban.

Since the terror attacks on Uri+ - that killed 19 soldiers - a few political parties and some other organizations warned Pakistani artists in India against staying on. Last week, the Maratha chauvinist Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) asked actors and artistes from Pakistan, including Fawad Khan and Mahira Khan, to leave India. It issued a 48-hour deadline, after which it said the party would "push them out".

In India, Salman and others have spoken against banning Pakistani artists.