ISLAMABAD: A non-bailable arrest warrant has been issued for former PTV chairman and senior anchor Dr. Shahid Masood, for his alleged involvement in Rs. 38m embezzlement.
According to sources privy to Newspakistan.tv he has purportedly signed an agreement with a fake company in order to get media rights for PCB. That resulted in a heavy loss to the channel.
Since the accused did not join the probe FIA sought the non-bailable arrest warrant claiming to harbor sufficient evidence.
A piece published earlier: Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA) has suspended TV anchor Dr. Shahid Masood and his programme on BOL News for 30 days, said a statement by the authority. The TV channel was also slapped with a fine of Rs1 million over baseless allegations against military and federal ministers, the statement added. The move came after the Council of Complaints of the country’s media regulatory reviewed a complaint lodged by Finance Minister Ishaq Dar saying that the anchorperson alleged that there was a secret meeting between him, the defense minister and Pakistan Army officials.
“… the anchor in the programme aired on January 24, 2017 made allegations of a defamatory nature about an alleged meeting in Rawalpindi, with the malafide and ulterior motives of attacking the integrity of the federal minister,” the notification read. Dar has also sent Rs1 billion legal notices through his legal counsel to both BOL News and anchor Dr. Shahid Masood for airing and anchoring the programme to defame him.
PEMRA further maintained that the private TV channel was given two opportunities to defend its case but it failed to justify their position by not providing any evidence of the alleged meeting.“The official record of PEMRA confirms that Shahid Masood is a willful and violator of PEMRA Code of Conduct and had been trying to create sensationalism thorough his irresponsible, untrue and derogatory comments against individual and the state institutions in the past as well,” the regulatory authority added in its remarks.
