PPP asks PEMRA to take strict action against TV channels airing false news reports

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) asked Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA) to take immediate stern action against TV channels for broadcasting fabricated and false news reports.

Pakistan People’s Party Parliamentarians (PPPP) Secretary General Farhatullah Babar wrote a letter addressed to the PEMRA chairman drawing his attention to the news reports which were factually wrong and fictitious.

“PPPP President Asif Ali Zardari and his sister Faryal Talpur appeared before the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) investigation team in their office in G-13 Islamabad on August 27,” the letter read.

“During their appearance and soon thereafter, a local news outlet aired what it claimed were the questions asked by the FIA and the replies given by Zardari and Faryal,” the letter added.

The letter also stated, “The channel aired an imaginary and totally wrong report. It is not correct that Zardari was asked questions about the Zardari Group of Companies. At the outset, the investigators were emphatically told that Zardari had nothing to do with the Zardari Group of Companies since becoming the president in 2008. Any illegality having taken place at any point in time in the affairs of the company was also denied. As a matter of fact in the first information report (FIR), Zardari and Faryal are witnesses and not the accused.”

The letter further stated, “It is also wrong to say that both Zardari and Faryal were handed over questionnaires. No such questionnaires were given to them today. Even Senator Farooq Naek who is the focal person for Zardari and Faryal in the matter of the investigation of the case has not been given any questionnaire.”

Farhatullah Babar also wrote that the airing of a totally false and misleading report about the appearance on Monday has militated against Zardari and Faryal.

He further wrote that the report has also created a serious misperception about them, vitiated public opinion and amounts to a blatant media trial. It is also against the observations of the Supreme Court (SC) that no such reports about investigation process be aired or published, he added.