New Delhi : The news channel NDTV has protested the Indian government’s ban on broadcast of the BBC documentary based on the horrific Nirbhaya gang rape in Delhi by airing a blank screen for an hour, which would have been the tentative duration of the documentary.
Nirbhaya documentary titled as ”India’s Daughters” was scheduled to run on New Delhi Television last night to mark International Women’s Day, but the film has been banned by the government, which argued that the video – which featured an unsettling interview with a convicted rapist – could have led to major social upheaval.
The only images to appear on a black screen on NDTV were a flickering lamp and the name of the documentary.
The station did not publicise the move, although editorial director and anchor Sonia Singh tweeted ‘We won’t shout but we will be heard’. Associate editor Kadambini Sharma tweeted the hashtags #IndiasDaughters, #Freedom Of Expression and #protest.
The BBC has withdrawn the documentary, which was based on the 2012 Delhi gang rape and murder of a 23 year-old physiotherapy student, from YouTube and Vimeo, although it is still viewable on the BBC’s iPlayer.
Earlier, many journalists bodies in India such as Editors Guild has condemned the ban and demanded the government to revoke the ban on Nirbhaya documentary.
