Police forcibly
take away uplinking equipment from Kantipur FM (Breaking
News 12:05 a. m.)
Police returned to Kantipur FM premises on late Friday-nearly
three hours after they had lef-and forcibly took away key equipment
used to uplink the FM’s transmission to Bhedetar station
in the eastern region.
According to staff with Kantipur FM, four vans of police arrived
at the station at Lalitpur and forcibly took away encoder, satellite
modem and digital audio recorder. They left the station at around
11:15 p. m.
Earlier, police had surrounded the FM station Sunday evening
after the FM staff and management refused to cut off their uplinking
facility as demanded by a team of officials sent by the Ministry
of Information and Communications (MoIC).
Kantipur FM management held that they have been using the uplinking
facility by following all the regulations enforced by the government.
They demanded written orders from the MoIC team if it wanted the
FM to shut down its uplinking facility.
The MoIC team said they had orders to disable the uplinking facility
as it was against the newly introduced media law. When they informed
their superiors at the MoIC about FM staff’s stand, the
Ministry sent in police instead of written orders.
After nearly a five-hour-long stand-off, the MoIC team left the
Kantipur FM premises at around 8 p.m. saying that they were satisfied
with the information provided by the station and that they will
submit their technical report to the Ministry on Sunday when the
office will resume.
It was not known immediately what led the government to send
security personnel at around mid-night to seize equipment from
the leading FM station. The station is owned by Kantipur Publications—the
leading private sector media house in the country.
Earlier, media groups, opposition parties and rights groups had
unequivocally condemned the government’s action against
the Kantipur FM on Friday. nepalnews.com by/dr Oct
22 05
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