Houston: Guyana's Indian-origin President Bharrat Jagdeo has suspended the license of a private television channel, run by an Indian, for four months for repeatedly airing death threats made by a caller against him.

Jagdeo, 44, who also holds the Ministry of Information, cracked the whip on CNS Channel owned by Chandra Narine Sharma after it repeatedly telecast the voice of a caller who had threatened to kill him.

The threat was made on the controversial live call-in programme on CNS channel 6, The Voice of the People, hosted by Sharma himself in February, Guyana Chronicle reported.

"Sharma's License was suspended after his channel was found to have committed serious infringements of the conditions of Licence by broadcasting on four occasions, content that advocated the killing of Guyanese Head of State," Government Information Agency (GINA) said in a statement.

The Advisory Committee of Broadcasting's had earlier accepted the apology of the channel for the "unfortunate incident" and had said that no action would be taken.

Sharma expressed regret about the rebroadcasts and indicated that he would put in place measures to ensure that such an occurrence was not repeated.

However, it did not stop Jagdeo from taking action against the channel.

"Under no circumstances could the Minister allow a Licensee to use the airwaves, without sanction, to advocate the killing of any citizen, more so a Head of State and Government," the statement added.

The government defended Jagdeo's decision, saying that the role of the ACB is "merely advisory".

In March 2001, the re-election of Jagdeo, a member of the Indo-Guyanese majority, to the Caribbean country's top post had caused rioting among the minority Afro-Guyanese, who claimed widespread election fraud.
Source : PTI