Last Updated on June 9, 2020 at 1:34 pm
With a large number of ‘godman’ and ‘tantriks’ making inroads into Jammu and openly advertising misleading content on local cable television, the silence of the UT government is not deafening but also questionable.
Most of the people may or may not have noticed the frequency of misleading advertisements of such ‘godman’ and faith-healer who claim to get you almost anything, if not everything, but the authorities are sitting on their hands with no action against such local channels that show these advertisements.
As per the rules, such advertisements are misleading and require immediate intervention of the authorities to stop them from being broadcasted. Similar misleading advertisements of self styled ‘godman’ are found in abundance in Jammu claiming to solve any complex problem.
These advertisements further mislead the people by claiming to remove hurdles in marriage, getting a jobs or improvement in business, getting back the lost love and treatment of chronic diseases among others. It is surprising that such advertisements are being broadcasted openly without any fear of law and the administration of different districts has so far done nothing in this regard.
A resident of Triquta Nagar who fell in a trap of a godman in Gujjar Nagar area said that he was promised that he would get a job in a month time and paid Rs 5000 to the godman in advance. “However nothing happened and when I went to the tantrik, I was told that I had not completed the rituals properly due to which I did not get a job” said the person whose identity has been withheld.
Most of these godman liked to be called as ‘Guruji’, ‘Baba’ and even ‘Bengali Baba’. They claim to perform ‘Chamatkari Totka’ ‘Vashikaran’ or black magic to get whatever their client wants.
As per the department of consumer affairs, “any advertisement or promotion through Television, Radio, or any other electronic media, Newspapers, Banners, Posters, Handbills, wall-writing etc. to misrepresent the nature, characteristics, qualities or geographic origin of goods, services or commercial activities so as to mislead the consumer could be broadly defined as a misleading advertisement”.
A complaint can be registered against any such channel showing misleading advertisement. The complaint can be registered at http://gama.gov.in to bring it into the notice of government.
