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Indian films may be banned: draft law ready

ISLAMABAD: With the enforcement of a new law to regularise the business of video films, the trade of Indian movies at video shops in Pakistan will be shortly banned, an official said here Friday.

"The draft law is ready for approval of the cabinet before its imposition in the country in the shape of an ordinance," the official in the Ministry of Information said.

Under the new law, the rental or sale of Indian films by video shops would be banned and registration of the traders with the government within a specific time limit would be made mandatory.

"After the registration, the traders will get a licence from the respective provincial government to run the business and this licence will be renewable annually," the official said.

Indian films are immensely popular in Pakistan and even latest ones, not released on the cinema circuit in India itself, are freely available with most of the estimated 80,000 video rental shops all across Pakistan.

Under Pakistan's film distribution and screening laws, exhibition of Bollywood films are already banned in local cinemas.

The official said that the Federal Minister for Culture Derek Cyprian, recently chaired a meeting in Islamabad to discuss the regularisation of the video business.

He said the meeting was attended by the secretary culture, acting chairman of the Pakistan Film Censor Board and other concerned officials.

"The matter of regularising the video business has been lying in cold storage for the last 15 years since the era of Muhammad Khan Junejo," the official said.

"Due to their certain interests, the political governments failed to implement a law in this regard," he added.

However, the official said, this government has decided to take solid steps to regularise the growing business of video in Pakistan.-Internews