India blocks Pakistani OTT platform over distorted content

The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting has issued instructions to block Pakistan-based OTT Platform Vidly TV along with a website, two mobile applications and four social media accounts for depicting distorted content.

The OTT Platform, Vidly TV, had released a web-series titled ‘Sevak: The Confessions’, which was found to be detrimental to “national security, sovereignty and integrity of India, defence of India, security of the State, India’s friendly relations with foreign States, and public order in the country”.

Three episodes of the web-series have been released till now.

The ministry believes that the web-series was sponsored by the Pakistani information operations apparatus. The first episode was released on 26/11, the anniversary of the deadly terror attacks on Mumbai in 2008. The opening credits of the web-series show the Ashok Chakra of the Indian flag on fire.

The web-series portrayed an anti-India narrative on sensitive historical events and subjects of national importance—Operation Blue Star and its aftermath, the demolition of the Babri Masjid, the murder of a Christian missionary Graham Staines, the Malegaon and the Samjhauta Express blasts and even the inter-state river water dispute related to the Sutlej Yamuna Link (SYL) canal.

The series has hateful dialogues related to Operation Blue Star and depicts India being hostile to the Muslim community. It also shows Indian political parties as being united in the demolition of Babri Masjid and depicts “Muslims, Sikhs and Christians as India’s internal threat”.

The Pakistani content, promoted as entertainment, promotes separatism, disaffection, and disenchantment among the Sikh community towards India and shows Operation Blue Star as a “massacre” of “innocent Sikhs”. It maliciously depicts developments after Operation Blue Star with communal tones, portraying police action as being motivated by religious reasons. The actors in the Pakistani series are depicted as Punjab policemen without turbans, sending a message that non-Sikh policemen labeled Sikhs as Khalistani terrorists.

The web-series sows hatred and division among its audience as it shows a Hindu priestess saying that Hindu children have to grow up and kill Muslims, Christians and Sikhs. Using religious symbols, the Pakistani propaganda tries to portray the riots of 1984 as an assault by Hindus against Sikhs.

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