LAHORE, Aug 26: A divided lot of cable operators in the Punjab called off its strike for two days on Tuesday when the government agreed to resolve the dispute through talks.

“The ministry of information and Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority have agreed to negotiate with the operators on Wednesday (today),” said one of the leading cable operators. The association had decided to defer the strike for two days and would chalk out the future course of action on Thursday, he claimed.

He also claimed that the local channel owners had written to the government that they did not need official support, if it came by closing Indian channels. The government had claimed that it was keeping a ban on some international channels with Indian content to support the local channels. The letter deflated the official claim, he added.

The cable operators had developed differences over the issue on Monday, a day after they stopped airing local and some international channels to protest the government’s ban on channels with Indian content. However, their strike wilted in the face of the government’s determination to keep the ban going.

Talking to Dawn on Monday, Federal Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmad said the government had banned these channels in response to the Indian decision, and had yet to review it. He refused to give timeframe for the review.

“The government knows who is behind the strike,” the minister said, adding: “Thirteen more Pakistani channels are in the pipeline, and the cable operators should promote these instead of asking for some particular foreign channels.”

The cable operators stopped showing some “local channels” — Geo, Uni, ARY — to protest the government’s decision to keep its ban on some of the international channels with Indian content. The cable operators smelt some conspiracy behind this decision, as they claimed that there were no nationalistic grounds to continue with the ban.

“The ban hardly makes sense in the world of globalization and changing regional scenario. Apart from regional and global compulsions, it will hurt the local industry,” the operators said.

They said most of the viewers demanded some particular channels a permanent ban on which would force them to switch to other options like dish antennae and video cassettes and compact disks.

The Punjab Cable Operators Association had distanced itself from the decision of the Pakistan Cable Operators Association, saying that abrupt strike would not solve the problem.

Capt Jabbar Khan (retired), chief of the Punjab cable operators who claimed support of 26 out of 32 operators in the city, said they had been talking to the government to solve the issue.

A spokesman of the central body, who called the strike, claimed support of 29 out of 32 city cable operators. He said all the cable workers observed strike in Karachi and about 70 per cent in Rawalpindi. However, he said, he was not sure about the response to the call in the interior of the country.

Seeing the government’s rigidity, the spokesman said, the cable operators had called off the strike on Tuesday for negotiations.