Amid tensions with India, Pakistan’s media regulatory authority on Wednesday decided to enforce a complete ban on Indian TV and radio contents from Friday and warned that the licences of those found guilty of violating the ban will be suspended.

Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA) decided to ban airing of Indian content from October 21 at the request of the federal government, it said.

“The ban will come into effect at 3pm on October 21, and radio and television stations which violate the ban will have their licences suspended without a prior show cause notice,” PEMRA said in a statement.

The ban extends to all Indian content on cable and radio being aired in Pakistan.

The regulator on August 31 said that strict action would be taken against the channels airing foreign content more than the prescribed limit and traders selling illegal DTH sets.

The decision was implemented from October 16 as PEMRA launched crackdown on those channels using foreign contents illegally.

Earlier in October, PEMRA granted its chairman Absar Alam final authority to revoke or suspend licences of companies illegally using Indian content.