Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (Pemra) on Monday issued a show cause notice to Bol News over the content of Dr Shahid Masood’s show.
The media watchdog in its notice said the programme, Live with Dr Shahid Masood, discussed sensitive information “recklessly and carelessly”. The notice referred to an episode of the programme aired on January 24, 2017, at 08.05 pm on Bol News which discussed civil-military relations.
The regulator asked the channel to reply to the notice by February 2.
The notice came after Finance Minister Ishaq Dar filed a complaint against the channel and the anchor.
READ MORE: Dar sends Rs 1b legal notice to BOL, anchor Dr Shahid
According to Pemra and Dar’s notices, Dr Masood in his programme stated that two ministers, one of whose name starts with a ‘K’ and the other’s with a ‘D’, were called to the General Headquarters (GHQ) in Rawalpindi recently. Dr Masood identified one of them as “dealing with the treasury” and the other as “related to defence”.
Earlier on Monday, Ishaq Dar has sent Rs 1 billion legal notice to ‘BOL news channel’ and anchor Dr Shahid Masood for airing/anchoring a malicious programme to defame him.
Anchor Dr Shahid Masood hosted a programme titled “Live with Dr Shahid Masood” on January 24, 2017, at 8:05 pm on BOL channel and passed conjecture and defamatory statements to damage the finance minister’s personality and character. He made a completely false statement hinting to an alleged meeting between the finance minister and Rawalpindi (GHQ), whereas, no such meeting had taken place at all. The story was utterly false and absolutely fictitious. The anchor’s fabrication had the malicious intent to defame and disgrace the minister.
