The West Bengal government Friday shut down the cable TV network in Darjeeling, prompting the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) to term it as a "Taliban style" gag intended to suppress the ongoing movement for the creation of a separate state of Gorkhaland.
The district administration sent a written notice to the major cable operators ordering them to stop the service, resulting in a TV blackout in Darjeeling as the indefinite bandh called by the GJM entered the seventh day Friday.
GJM president Bimal Gurung claimed that cable TV service has been blocked as the local channels aired programmes in support of the Gorkhaland movement.
"The government has blocked out the TV channels as they were showing reports supporting us and through them we were reaching people," Gurung said.
In a retaliatory move, the GJM said it will remove all the cellphone towers from the hills. "I have asked my people to uproot the mobile towers. Animals and birds are harmed by radiation and we do not need mobile network. We will remove all the mobile towers," the GJM chief said.
Two cable service providers "- Darjeeling Combined Cable Network (DCCN) and Milkyway Cable Vision "- cater to the needs of more than 70 per cent of the area in Darjeeling town while the remaining population "- mostly in Kalimpong and Kurseong sub-divisions "- has switched over to direct to home (DTH) services.
The cable TV operators termed the order a "political decision" taken by the government. Sources said that the district administration officials raided the offices of the two cable service providers late on Thursday.
The district administration said that it was a "routine drive". "The cable service providers have been asked to produce certain documents. Once they do so the services can resume," a senior district administration official said.