With tension between India and Pakistan at an all time high, Pakistan’s media regulatory authority has made a decision to impose a complete ban on Indian TV and Radio content starting this Friday. A warning also has been published that licences of those found guilty of violating the ban will be suspended.

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

The ban came at the request of the federal government, according to PERMA. The one-sided rights given to Indian media by the government of former military dictator Pervez Musharraf in 2006 will also be suspended.

PEMRA had already been playing hardball with Indian content after complaints surfaced that local channels were violating the allowed 5% foreign content quota. The authority issued a statement on the 31st of August saying that the channels airing foreign content over the prescribed limit and the traders selling illegal DTH sets would face severe consequences. This implementation of this decision took place from October 16 with PERMA launching an investigation on channels with illegal foreign content.