NEW DELHI: The government has sent a warning to DY 365 News channel for showing ‘extremely disturbing visuals of dead bodies and badly injured people including children’ that ‘were not only disturbing but may also hurt the sentiments of the viewers.’

The Information and Broadcasting Ministry has asked the channel to strictly adhere to the terms of permission granted to uplink it on 30 July 2008 and under

Section 20 of the Cable Television Network (Regulation) Act, 1995.

The Ministry said it had issued the notice, after the channel had telecast News bulletins on 12 May 2013, 22 February 2013, 2 February 2013, 2 November 2012, 4 October 2O12, 2 September 2012, 26 July 2012, 22 July 2012, 9 July 2012 and 3 July 2012 in different bulletins visuals that were ‘neither morphed nor blurred in keeping with the sensitivities of the victim's families as well as viewers.’

Hence the Ministry found that these visuals appear to offend good taste and decency and do not appear to be suitable for children and for unrestricted public exhibition.

A show cause notice was sent to the channel on 26 September last year in reply to which the channel took the excuse that the faces had been shown so that their relatives could identify them and ‘there was no deliberate or intentional motive of the channel to show faces of the deceased in the news programme’. The channel also offered an unconditional apology.

In view of the reply, the Inter-Ministerial Committee in its meeting on 26 February this year gave a personal opportunity to the channel to present its case.

The warning has been issued as the Committee was clear that the telecasts were in clear violation of the provisions of the Programme Code, particularly Rules 6(1Xa), 6(1)(o), and 6 (5) of CTNR, 1994. The IMC observed that even though the channel had accepted its fault and apologised for its mistake, it cannot escape the responsibility of ensuring content on the channel which must be in conformity with the Programme Code at all times.