New Delhi: An NDTV team working on a story in Iraq for 'The World This Week', to be launched again tonight, was arrested by the Kurdish Security Service in the town of Dohuk in Northern Iraq, the Channel said in a release in New Delhi on September 4.

NDTV was conducting an opinion poll in Mosul, Dohuk and other areas in the region. The TWTW story is about local Iraqi views on whether Indian troops should come to that region or not. The Indian government is currently considering whether or not to send troops to Iraq as part of a multinational peacekeeping force.

The two-man NDTV team, correspondent Ajai Shukla and cameraperson, Akhai Shimray, along with five local pollsters were detained, taken to a local 'jail' and questioned for six hours. The team was searched and roughed up and about a hundred polling papers confiscated. They were eventually released after being warned to leave the city immediately, the release said.

The visit to Dohuk was part of an in-depth story for 'The World This Week' and involves the first ever opinion poll in the predominantly Kurdish areas of Northern Iraq. The team was questioning more than 700 locals who were asked what they felt about Indian jawans replacing American GIs in their area.

According to the poll, a large majority of people in northern Iraq do not want Indian troops to go there. 'The World This Week' will have full details of the poll results.

PTI