Attackers storm Pakistani cable TV company

Tens of thousands of cable television subscribers in northwest Pakistan were cut off today after armed masked men stormed a broadcaster’s offices and smashed equipment.

Jehanzeb Khan, owner of the OK Cable Network, said about 25 men armed with Kalashnikovs and pistols broke into the building late last night.

He said they pointed guns at everyone before destroying the transmission equipment.

Police in Peshawar said they knew of no motive or suspects. But many businesses linked to the mass media – viewed as licentious and un-Islamic in the deeply conservative region bordering Afghanistan – have been targeted in recent weeks, sometimes violently.

An ultraconservative Islamic religious bloc, the United Action Forum, has kicked off an anti-obscenity campaign in the area, tearing down billboards for films and making bonfires of videos and CDs.

The bloc, which came to power late last year, has targeted movies that would not be considered offensive in the West or by many Pakistanis.

The alliance has also vowed to implement Islamic law in the region.