The police action against cable operators may be an extension of the long-standing battle among cable operators for control of the Kathmandu market

Cable television and Inte rnet service provider SUBISU’s Chief Executive Officer Sudhir Parajuli will always remember July 16. Shortly after 8 p.m. on the day his company launched its cable Internet service, the first in the country, about 20 uniformed policemen surrounded his office in Baluwatar. The police held everyone in the office at gunpoint, took two of the company’s directors into custody and confiscated two servers, the computer hardware controlling the Internet service.

When Parajuli arrived at the Hanuman Dhoka police station, he found owners of five other cable TV services, all belonging to the same umbrella organization, Nepal Cable Television Sangh. It was the same story; the police had seized their equipment too. By then almost half of Kathmandu households were without cable services.

The charges were then revealed: evading taxes, exceeding the subscription ceiling for the number of authorized members and illegally using Nepal Telecom poles to extend their services. The police released the confiscated equipment two hours later, after paying two more visits to Parajuli’s office to break open a door whose key they had taken earlier. The hardware, say the victims, was badly damaged.

“The police came without a warrant and threatened to shoot us dead when we demanded that they produce arrest papers and issue us papers for the confiscated goods,” says Parajuli. “Plus, the charges were all baseless.” Parajuli is also the general secretary of the Nepal Cable Television Sangh, which has 13 of the capital’s 16 licensed cable operators as members. The other three operators belong to the rival Nepal Cable Television Association, which is headed by Space Time Network. Space Time is a major cable operator that also runs an influential media house and controls more than 50 percent of the cable market in the Valley. “It was plain dacoity,” alleges Parajuli.

Insiders say the raid was an extension of the longstanding battle between cable operators over the lucrative Kathmandu cable business. A Superintendent of Police went on record the same evening on Channel Nepal to claim that the raid was legal, for it had followed an application filed by the Nepal Cable Television Association. The association has denied making any such requests.

“It was a conspiracy by Space Time Network, as they were losing their market share,” says M. R. Ranjit, president of the Nepal Cable Television Sangh and owner of the Blue Himalayan Cable Television Network. Blue Himalayan’s office at Bhimsensthan suffered the most damage during the police raid. According to Ranjit, Space Time’s Channel Nepal broke the news of the raid on their 8 p.m. newscast, while the raid was still going on. He says the report had a lot of details and looked all planned.

Parajuli goes so far as to claim that the Space Time technicians were involved with the police in most of the raids. “The police have taken the most vital servers with them,” he says, “it is hard to believe that policemen can identify electronic equipment that only experts in the field can tell.”

Space Time Network’s Chairman Jamim Shah would not come to the phone despite our repeated requests. The Network’s General Manager Mohan Bhakta Mathema told us: “We don’t want to make any comments until the government committee makes public its finding.” Information Minister Mohammad Mohsin formed a six-member committee to look into the incident.

When Nation Weekly contacted the officer who conducted the raids, Superintendent of Police Deepak Ranjit, for comments, he maintained that the cable operators had evaded tax and that the police had a copy of an application filed by the Nepal Cable Television Association. “We don’t need to act on anyone’s influence,” he said, denying he was following orders from Space Time.
“The police force has the full right to act upon those working illegally.”

The cable operators of the Sangh deny the charge. Sangh president Ranjit said all their taxes have been paid except for a few payments pending for the last one or two months. Parajuli told us that SUBISU had experienced three surprise raids from the revenue department since they obtained license for cable internet in 2003. He said SUBISU got clean chits on all three occasions.

“The police should be raiding Space Time instead. Space Time hasn’t paid its two years of VAT amounting up to two crores,” a Sangh official told us. “Plus, it hasn’t paid its dues to Nepal Telecom since the last four years for using its poles, and its agreement ended more than two years ago.”

The Nepal Cable Operators Sangh has moved to court and is demanding Rs. 10,000,000 as compensation and a stay order against further police action against them until the court decision is announced. Information Minister Mohsin said the police action came without his or Home Minister Purna Bahadur Khadka’s knowledge. The committee, Minister Mohasin formed, is currently making rounds of the cable operators’ offices where the raids were made.

“It looks like they’re only investigating if the police charges against us are true or not,” said SUBISU’s Parajuli. “They don’t seem to be investigating if the police action was really unlawful.”