The Hindu : Front Page : Pakistan bans import of films made in India

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Aug 01, 2005

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Pakistan bans import of films made in India

B. Muralidhar Reddy

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has banned import of films made or developed in India in any form, according to the new list of 30 banned items.

According to the Import Policy Order 2005, the banned items include any "cinematograph film wholly or partly exposed or developed in any Pakistani or Indian language, with or without a sound track and depicting Pakistani or Indian way of living either silent or dubbed, or in which leading roles have been played by Pakistani or Indian actors or actresses".

The decision has come at a juncture when the local cinema owners and a section of the film industry have been demanding a lift of the ban on exhibition of Indian films imposed after the 1965 war. Ban on co-production or Pakistani films made or developed in India were originally imposed during the Zia-ul-Haq era.

The new banned list includes import of the Quran without Arabic text; goods (including their containers) bearing any words or inscription of a religious connotation, the use or disposal of which may injure the religious feelings of any sect, class or group of people in Pakistan goods (including their containers) bearing any obscene pictures, writings, inscriptions or visible representations; anti-Islamic, obscene or subversive literature; any goods containing ingredients or parts which may be repugnant to the injunctions of Islam as laid down in the Quran and Sunnah of the Prophet, such as pigs, hogs, boars and swines and their products and by-products.

Tanks and other armoured fighting vehicles, motorised, whether or not fitted with weapons and parts of such vehicles, other than armoured security vans; military weapons, machine-guns, sub-machine-guns, automatic rifles of all calibers and other military fire-arms and projectiles (other than revolvers and pistols); revolvers and pistols of prohibited bores and of calibers higher than 0.46 inches bore; arms of prohibited bores (including semi-automatic rifles of 7.62 mm and rifles of 8 mm to 9 mm bores) and arms of calibers higher than 0.22 bore rifles; other (fire arms and similar devices which operate by firing of an explosive charge); other arms (for example, spring guns, air guns or gas guns, pistols and truncheons); parts and accessories of articles of heading No. 93.01 to 93.04, excluding parts and accessories of heading No. barrel blanks for recoilless rifles, guns and mortars and ammunition and parts of ammunition, except ammunition for weapons of non-prohibited bores and gambling equipment.

In a related development, Punjab Provincial Minister for Agricultural Marketing Rana Qasim Noon has said import of agricultural commodities from India would continue till supply and demand position in the domestic market was stabilised.

He told local media in Lahore on Saturday that import of agricultural commodities from India through land route was a breakthrough. To provide perishable food items to Pakistani consumers at reasonable rates, there was no harm to import agri commodities from India and if needed, India could also import from Pakistan.

He said about 50,000 tonnes of potato and onion had been imported from India. Pakistan was importing garlic and onion from China and India through alternative routes. He said the Government had also allowed livestock product import from India.

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