Pemra issues notice to Bol television over Dr Shahid Masood’s show

ISLAMABAD: The Pakis­tan Electronic Media Regu­la­tory Authority (Pemra) on Monday issued a show cause notice to Bol News over the contents of a programme conducted by Dr Shahid Masood.

The notice said that in the programme, Live with Dr Shahid Masood, sensitive information was discussed “recklessly and carelessly”. The regulator asked the channel to reply to the notice by Feb 2.

The Pemra notice referred to an episode of the programme aired on Jan 24, which focused on civil-military relations.

Pemra also made mention of a complaint by Finance Minister Ishaq Dar over the matter.

The contents of the programme, which were reproduced in Pemra’s show cause notice, as well as in the legal notices issued by the minister, said Dr Masood stated in his programme that two ministers, one of whose name starts with a ‘K’ and the other’s with a ‘D’, were called to the GHQ recently.

Dr Masood identified one of them as “dealing with the treasury” and the other as “related to defence”.

Ishaq Dar has served a defamation notice of Rs1 billion on the management of Bol News and Dr Masood over a claim that the minister had held a meeting with army personnel at the GHQ, Rawalpindi.

The notice sent by the minister said the contents of the programme were false and defamatory.

Source: Dawn