An Information and Broadcasting panel on Thursday has recommended that Hindi news channel NDTV India be taken off the air as penalty for revealing “strategically-sensitive” information while covering the Pathankot attack in January, PTI reported. Officials said the panel suggested taking the channel off the air from 1 pm on November 9 to 1 pm on November 10. The committee said the channel “appeared to give out the exact location of the remaining terrorists with regard to the sensitive assets in their vicinity” when they aired the details in real time.

The panel alleged that the details disclosed by the channel could have been used by the militants to “cause massive harm not only to the national security, but also to lives of civilians and defence personnel.” While the news agency's attempts to get a comment from the channel came to naught, NDTV India had earlier dismissed the allegations as a case of “subjective interpretation” and said that most of the information it had aired was already in the public domain.

Militants attacked an Indian Air Force base in Pathankot on January 2. Six security personnel were killed in the conflict that lasted 17 hours. India maintained that the Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed militant outfit was responsible for the assault, and demanded the arrest of its chief, Masood Azhar.