On the 20th of this month, as one of its lighter stories in a news bulletin, the channel had featured a sequence on why Sikhs are often the butt of ridicule. A particularly offensive reference to `12 o'clock', which has a religious connotation, raised the hackles of the community. An apology from the channel which appeared in a newspaper this morning, was deemed late and unacceptable by the community.

So, at around 3 pm, a group of 60 persons barged into the six-room office-cum-studio of the channel at Khiranagar on S V Road and damaged the furniture, besides equipment including 10 video cassette recorders,televisions monitors and wrecked doors and windows. A police complaint was registered and 41 persons were arrested. This sparked the angry demonstration outside the police station.The recently started C News, which has a tie-up with several local channels, is owned by the Raheja group and is headed by Sushil Deshpande, who is the channel's programming in-charge. In South Mumbai, the channel is beamed up to Worli, and in northern parts up to Goregaon. It is also aired in suburbs which are not reached by In Mumbai.

The demonstrators today included representatives of 36 organisations including the parent Shiromani Gurudwara Prabhandak Committee (Maharashtra unit), Shree Guru Singh Sabha, Dadar, Sikh Brotherhood International, Kalghidhar Punjabi Sevak Jatha, Guru Gobind Study Circle, Khalsa Sports, Sikh Youth Association, Young Khalsa and Khalsa Dal Sevak Jatha.

The surging crowd virtually laid siege to the Santacruz police station, waving saffron flags and shouting slogans frequently interspersed with thereligious incantation, ``Bole So Nihal, Sat Sri Akal.''

Occupying the compound and spilling on to SV Road, the demonstrators had one question: why wasn't anyone from the channel in police custody?

The SGPC (Maharashtra) member Kewal Singh said it was atrocious on the part of the television channel to offend the sentiments of a community. ``How could they introduce such questions in the middle a news programme which is generally supposed to be serious? The jokes were not aimed at a particular person but at the entire community. They aired the views of people saying that Sikhs are fools, idiots and that they have no brains,'' Singh told Express Newsline. He said the community also felt let down as representatives of the channel, who were supposed to meet members of the Sikh community to apologise, failed to turn up today.

Another demonstrator, Arvinder Singh Chandoke rued, ``In a country whose Constitution does not support any single religious group, it is totally irresponsible on the part of thetelevision channel to put out defamatory programmes. That it was part of the news, which is usually edited before it is beamed, is uncalled for and a deliberate attempt at ridicule.''

Additional Commissioner of Police (North-West) Rakesh Maria, who rushed to Santacruz police station to intervene, confirmed that none of the television staffers had been arrested. Channel in-charge Deshpande confirmed the damage to property and equipment but refused to comment beyond that.