Mumbai cable TV back on air

By Monica Chadha
BBC News, Mumbai

Cable TV operators in the Indian city of Mumbai (Bombay) have resumed transmissions after suspending services for more than 24 hours.

Their programmes were taken off air on Monday after police officers raided eight operators and seized their transmission equipment.

Police say the operators were showing adult films, flouting a ban on them.

The operators say the state deputy chief minister has assured them that they won't be raided by police again.

At least three million homes were affected by the blackout.

The High Court banned the airing of films that have been rated A or U/A by the Indian Censor Board on cable TV last December after a public interest petition was filed by a Mumbai resident, Professor Pratibha Naithani.

Last week, the court criticised the police for not following its order properly.

'Tremendous confusion'

The vice-president of the Cable Operators' and Distributors' Association for Maharashtra state, Ravi Singh, told the BBC that they would continue to block the nine channels mentioned by the police.

These include mostly movie channels such as HBO, AXN, Star Movies, Star One, Set Max, Zee Cinema and Sahara Filmy.

How do we monitor what content is provided by a channel? And who will decide what is to be shown and what is not to be shown? Ravi Singh, vice-president, Cable Operators' and Distributors' Association

Meanwhile, the operators have filed a petition in the Mumbai High Court seeking clarification on which channels can be broadcast. The petition is expected to come up for hearing on Wednesday.

They are also demanding the release of equipment seized during raids on Monday.

Earlier, Mumbai's police commissioner, AN Roy, said the raids against the cable operators would cease if they stopped showing adult content.

Speaking to the BBC, Mr Singh said there was tremendous confusion about which channels were to be shown and which were to be taken off.

"How do we monitor what content is provided by a channel? And who will decide what is to be shown and what is not to be shown? Even the police are confused about which channel shows what," he said.

Mr Singh said he had also sought clarification, as other channels not included in the banned list show movies and the operators wanted to be sure that they would not be penalised for airing them.

Besides Mumbai, other parts of Maharashtra state - such as Nasik, Pune, Thane and New Mumbai - were also affected by the channel blackout.