Govt embargo on CNN, Indian news channels
Kantipur Report
KATHMANDU, Jan 21 - Video footage shot by CNN-IBN and Star News TV channels on Friday of soldiers inside the Koteshwor residence of CPN-UML general secretary Madhav Kumar Nepal, who is under house arrest, was erased by the army.
The tapes were returned nearly five hours after they were seized, Parul Malhotra, senior correspondent of CNN-IBN channel said.
The whole episode began at around noon Friday.
According to Malhotra, the soldiers objected to being shown on tape surrounding Nepal's residence and inside it, and asked the Indian TV channel crews to hand over the tapes.
The crew refused and the argument went on for nearly an hour. "The officer demanding the tapes became quite unreasonable; he started contacting his seniors and became panicky."
It was then that the TV crews offered to erase the footage, but the officer demanded that the tapes be handed over. "We refused, and said 'you may arrest us if you want but we won't part with the tapes', reminding them that we had valid press and curfew passes for news coverage," Malhotra said. "Even Madhav Nepal asked them to behave."
Later, the offer to erase the tapes also became unacceptable as the officer "insisted" that since he did not know the technicalities, it had to be handled by a technical team.
In the end, he told the TV crews to either wait for about three hours for the tech team or leave the tapes behind and come back later to collect the erased tapes.
"Seeing no option, we had to leave the tapes and I had to go back at 5 pm and collect them, and the concerned footage was erased," Malhotra informed. Asked how she felt about the entire episode, she said, "It was unfortunate as well as ridiculous."
