NEW DELHI: The Information and Broadcasting ministry has issued warnings to two private TV channels for showing offending visuals – one related to sexually abused child, and other on a man being lynched.
In the warning issued on Monday last, Information and Broadcasting ministry citing ruled said that a Telugu TV channel, NTV, showed news related sexual harassment of a minor boy from Andhra Pradesh by his hostel warden, last year.
“During the telecast personal details of the victim were revealed. The channel showed the bite marks inflicted all over victim's body allegedly by the warden. Though the channel had blurred the face of the victim, it disclosed the name of the victim and his school's name putting the victim and his family in a very vulnerable position,” the ministry order said.
However, the channel argued that the victim was not a minor boy, and the intent behind the news story was to bring the abuse out in the open forcing the government to take action against the offender.
The ministry argued that rules related to depiction of children have been violated and hence issued the channel a warning asking it to follow the provisions of programme and advertising codes and NCPCR (national commission for protection of child rights) guidelines on media reporting on children.
In a separate case, the ministry warned a Bengali news channel - 24 Ghanta – for showing shots of a man being beaten to death.
“The channel displayed the visuals of the deceased's body without morphing or blurring. The visuals appeared in bad taste and against the sensitivities of the victim's family. The visuals also did not appear to be suitable for children and for unrestricted public exhibition,” ministry’s order issued on March 23 said.
The incident took place last year in Baruipur district of West Bengal, where vigilante mob lynched a man accused of allegedly stealing a car battery from one of the houses in the area.
Though, the channel regretted the visuals, the ministry order added that the TV channel should be cautious in showing such content, and issued a “warning.” More violations can invite further punitive actions, the ministry warned.
The ministry either acts on complaints received from public or can even take sou motto action on TV channels which are seen violating any of the rules. The government currently runs a facility in Delhi where over 300 channels out of the total 830 channels are monitored. The government is updating its facilities to take the number of TV channels under monitoring for content violations to 1500 by 2017.