Radio station owner suspects sabotage in robbery

ALEXANDRA GILL
Globe and Mail

VANCOUVER -- A new voice in British Columbia's South Asian radio universe is scrambling to meet its scheduled launch date this Saturday after a robbery last week.

Last Friday morning, thieves broke into the station's North Burnaby office at 3060 Norland Ave., and took off with its main server, back-up system and specialized production equipment that contained music collections, taped station identification spots and other valuable software that amounts to weeks of lost work.

Police say it was a routine break-in, but the station's owner is suspicious.

"Someone doesn't want us to launch," said Sushma Datt, the owner of I.T. Productions Ltd., which operates CJRJ AM 1200, one of two new ethnic radio stations licensed last year.

"They knew what they were looking for," said Ms. Datt, explaining that the thieves bypassed seven computers at work stations near the front of the office, and only removed equipment from the office's two production studios and on-air suite.

"These are not personal computers," she said. "This equipment would be useless to most people, even to other radio broadcasters. All our programs are designed in-house."

Constable Kalinda Link, media relations liaison for the Burnaby RCMP, said a witness saw a van leaving the premises. The vehicle, which turned out to be stolen, was later recovered.

Although the production equipment is still missing and the case remains under investigation, Constable Link says there is nothing in the report that points to a targeted break-in.

Others in the community suggest the timing is strange.

"Maybe someone's playing mischief," says Rattan Mall, editor of Indo-Canadian Voice, a weekly newspaper published in Surrey.

I.T. Productions is a privately owned company that also operates Radio Rim Jhim, a subcarrier broadcaster.

Radio Rim Jhim, has been on the air for 17 years and was once the market leader, but can be received only by specialized radio sets tuned to its frequency, a subsignal of local country station CJJR-FM, or on cable and satellite.

In 2004, Ms. Datt applied to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission for a new licence to expand her audience.

The CRTC put two licences up for bid, after assessing that the Lower Mainland's South Asian community -- now 250,000 people strong -- was being underserved. Eight applicants competed for the two licences, one AM, one FM.

I.T. Productions won the AM bid. The new station will be broadcast in 17 languages for 11 ethnic communities, although most of the Monday-to-Saturday programming will be heard in Punjabi, Urdu, Hindustani and English.Ms. Datt is no stranger to controversy. She's received death threats and her car tires were slashed on numerous occasions, after speaking out on talk-show programs about violence against women, infanticide and religious differences.

She noted, however, that she hasn't said anything recently that would upset people or provoke the theft at her new station.