In yet another incident of attack on dissenting voice by West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee, the West Bengal govt stopped the broadcast of a News Channel on cable networks for questioning the govt. As per reports, the broadcast of the channel Calcutta News was stopped on various cable networks in Kolkata and surrounding areas.
BJP MP Swapan Dasgupta said that Calcutta News has been ‘mildly critical’ of the Mamata Banerjee government, and that was enough for the govt to remove it from cable networks. He said that cable networks in Kolkata pulled the plug on Calcutta News under sustained administrative pressure. “This sustained attack on news & opinions that are not to TMC’s liking is a feature of this state government that sustains itself on crude propaganda & sycophancy,” Dasgupta said.
Images shared by social media users show that the channel was not showing up on various cable networks like Siti Cable, DEN, WishNet, DDCTN, CCTN etc.
West Bengal BJP termed it as an undeclared emergency in Bengal. They said that after gag order on mainstream media and arrests of Social Media activists, now the channel has been banned as it it has been taken off air by all MSOs.
The channel confirmed that it has come under the attack of state government. They updated the banner image in their social media accounts to inform that their channel was off the air from some areas not due to some technical issue, but due to attack from the state government.
The Calcutta News is one of the few media houses in West Bengal which is questioning the state government over the handling of the Coronavirus crisis. There have been allegations of the state government under-reporting the Coronavirus infection and death numbers in the case, severe mismanagement of hospitals and other such issues, which were being exposed by the channel.
While the channel has been taken down from cable networks, it is still available on DTH platforms. Moreover, the channel’s live feed is also available online on Youtube.
