In connection to some contentious comments made by opposition party leader Shahbaz Gill on a Television program, the ARY news channel in Pakistan announced on Wednesday that local police had detained the organization’s head and had filed an FIR against the CEO and others.

In the incident related to the news channel’s August 8 bulletin that showed Gill, the leader of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), making “hateful remarks” against the Pakistan Army, CEO Salman Iqbal was also detained by the Karachi police, along with producers Adeel Raja, Khawar Ghuman, and Arshad Sharif, according to the FIR, which was reported by Dawn News.

According to the FIR, Sharif and Ghuman engaged in the program as analysts.

In his telephone discussion with the channel, Gill claimed that the Shehbaz Sharif administration was attempting to incite the lower and middle echelons of the Army to turn against the PTI.
He claimed that the government’s fury was being fueled by the families of such “rank and file” supporters of PTI party leader Imran Khan. The leader of the PTI further asserted that the “strategic media cell” of the country’s ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) was disseminating misleading information and untrue rumors in an effort to stoke tensions between the public and the armed forces.

The FIR alleged that “They are sowing hatred and rebellion in the armed forces.” Ammad Yousaf, the senior executive vice-president of Pakistani television network ARY News, was detained in Karachi, the network reported on Wednesday. The channel’s announcement was made only a few hours after it had been removed from the air for criticizing the administration.
The channel allegedly broadcast seditious content, which was another justification given for the decision to shut it. Yousaf was taken into custody without a warrant at his home in Karachi’s DHA neighborhood, according to ARY News.

ARY informed, “Police officers, along with plain-clothed personnel, forcibly entered the house of Ammad Yousaf. The raiding team diverted the CCTV cameras of Yousaf’s house, and jumped into the house from the top of the main entrance.”

The Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA) had previously served the channel with a notice stating that it had been deactivated “for broadcasting objectionable, hateful, seditious, based on absolute lies and misinformation with a clear and present threat to national security by instigating rebellion within the armed forces with malafide intent to cause a rift between the government and forces.”

PEMRA has now requested that the channel’s CEO show up in person for an August 10 hearing.

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