Monday, November 28 2005 18:05 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Kathmandu: Charging it with "aiding terrorism", Nepal's royal government has raided a private radio station and arrested five media persons and seized transmission equipment to prevent it from broadcasting an interview by Maoist supremo Prachanda given to BBC.

During the overnight raid on Sagarmatha FM station at Jawalakhel in Lalitpur district near here, the police handed over two letters from Information and Communication Ministry, charging it with violating license agreement and "aiding terrorists and terrorism."

Those arrested were Producer Durga Karki, Co-producer Dipak Pandey and three reporters -Dipak Bahadur Aryal, Punya Bhandari and Rajendra Rijal. Karki was later released.

"The FM station was found airing programmers aiding terrorists and terrorism, which was against the conditions mentioned in the license," alleged one letter from the government. The other letter said since it did not comply with the earlier order to stop transmission, the government "requested" the station to send its transmission equipment.

Station manager Ghamaraj Luitel denied the government charges saying, "we had decided not to air the interview and we have not violated any law."

He said Sagarmatha had earlier planned to broadcast the interview, but later changed the decision.

Sagarmatha FM, claimed to be South Asia's first community radio, had stopped airing news-related programmes and was only transmitting information-oriented programmes as per the provisions of the new media ordinance, Luitel said.