Dawood, ISI to launch TV channel in Pak?

mangaloretoday.com

NEW DELHI, Sept. 29 (HT): A new TV channel in the works in Pakistan is creating a lot of media buzz. No, it’s not because of the fat salaries - houses and luxury cars included - it is offering or even the talent it is attracting. It’s because BOL channel network has a unique backer - Dawood Ibrahim - and the ISI’s blessings.

People closely involved with setting up BOL - set to go on air by the year-end - privately confirm the two main parties are the gangster-turned-terrorist and the spy agency. They say the ISI has adopted this strategy to counter an increasingly independent broadcast media.

 

Ibrahim, India’s most wanted man, has asked aide Chota Shakeel to oversee BOL’s finances. Shakeel has personally met some of the journalists and offered them jobs.

BOL has set its sights high: it wants to upstage GEO TV, Pakistan’s leading news channel. It has even managed to get GEO’s head for Pakistani ’ 10 million (’6 million) a month, insiders say.

BOL will start with a news and entertainment channel and move on to sports before making forays in print. The larger plan includes English and Urdu newspapers.

The official sponsor of BOL TV is Axact, a Karachi-based online content firm. It claims to be a software house with over 5,000 employees but has been accused in the past of hosting illegal porn sites and selling fake degrees.

It has of fice blocks in Karachi’s Defence area, a sign of official sanction at a very high level. Insiders say Axact handled a lot of the ISI’s cyber activities.

But all that’s a front. Pakistani industry sources say the main funding comes from Ibrahim, said to be based in Dubai but with an expanding business in Pakistan.

Indian sources say launching a channel is unusual for the ISI which has, in the past, bought journalists, paid existing channels or tried to influence specific programmes.