Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s official YouTube channel has been blocked in India, merely days after a terrorist attack in Pahalgam, Jammu and Kashmir resulted in the death of 26 tourists. Now, when consumers go to the channel, they receive the message: “This content is currently unavailable in this country because of an order from the government related to national security or public order.”
The ban comes on top of the Indian government banning 16 high-profile Pakistani Youtube channels (including several of the larger news media outlets such as Dawn, Samaa TV, ARY News, Geo News, and Bol News), with total subscribers of over 63 million. The rationale for this ban, according to YouTube, was that the channels were propagating “provocative, communally sensitive content and misinformation about India and its security forces.”
The Ministry of Home Affairs recommendations that prompted the crackdown, pointed to individual journalists, such as Irshad Bhatti, Asma Shirazi, Umar Cheema and Muneeb Farooq, as targets.
India, meanwhile, also sent a warning to the BBC over what it termed as ” biased reporting” of the Pahalgam terror incident, objecting to the BBC’s use of the word “militants” to describe the terrorists. The Ministry of External Affairs conveyed its views to BBC India head Jackie Martin formally.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has promised a “hardest” retaliation against those responsible for the Pahalgam attack, claiming that terrorists and their supporters who “do not like the return of peace and prosperity” in Kashmir were behind the attack.
India has cancelled visas for a number of Pakistan nationals, followed by a reported 500 plus Pakistan nationals, including diplomats, departing the country using the Attari-Wagah border. Indian authorities have also escalated efforts to eliminate terror infrastructure in Jammu and Kashmir, demolishing homes linked to militants and arresting suspected collaborators.
