ISLAMABAD: The opposition Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) on Friday criticised Prime Minister Imran Khan and accused him of calling the media a mafia.<\/p>\n

In a series of tweets, PML-N spokesperson Marriyum Aurangzeb says that an \u201cincompetent, incapable and selected\u201d prime minister is saying that there is a mafia in the media. \u201cIt is shameful, regrettable and deplorable,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Ms Aurangzeb said a \u201cperson involved in money laundering, imprisoning his opponents in death cells, closing down the parliament and risking the livelihoods and businesses of citizens\u201d was describing the media as a mafia.<\/p>\n

She blamed the prime minister for destroying the country\u2019s economy and outsourcing the economy to the International Monetary Fund (IMF). She said Mr Khan had joined hands with \u2018\u2018thieves and robbers\u2019\u2019.<\/p>\n

Firdous says PML-N initiated \u2018lifafa culture\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

She held the premier responsible for taking \u201ctalk shows off air, influencing editorials and stealing elections\u201d.<\/p>\n

While speaking at the groundbreaking ceremony of the Jalalpur Canal project in Pind Dadan Khan town of Jhelum on Thursday, PM Khan said 2020 would be the year of economic stability in Pakistan and would prove to be a tough one for mafias.<\/p>\n

Elaborating further, he said mafias were present in the Federal Board of Revenue and other government institutions, in politics and in newspapers. He said newspapers carried bad news [against the government] everyday.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose journalists who had benefited from the corrupt system in the past were now writing against his administration,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Reacting to the PML-N statement, Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Information and Broadcas\u00adting Firdous Ashiq Awan took to Twitter, reminding the PML-N\u2019s spokesperson that \u201cthe mafia\u2019s government had initiated the lifafa culture [yellow journalism]\u201d in the country.<\/p>\n

Referring to the previous government of the PML-N, Ms Awan said that \u201cpeople still remember the role of Saifur Rehman who had a hobby of lodging fake cases against newspapers and his political opponents\u201d.<\/p>\n

She went on to say that [during the tenure of the PML-N government] newspapers\u2019 offices were attacked and the media was subjected to \u201cblackmailing\u201d.<\/p>\n

The government\u2019s chief spokesperson said that \u201cmafia, thieves and robbers get annoyed when institutions follow the law\u201d, adding that the prime minister\u2019s war against the mafia would continue.<\/p>\n

Bullying and intimidation<\/strong><\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Ms Aurang\u00adzeb, while condemning the summoning of PML-N deputy secretary general Attaullah Tarrar to the Federal Investigation Agency\u2019s office, said the country was being ruled by Imran Khan-led mafia\u2019s bullying and intimidation.<\/p>\n

In a statement, she said Mr Tarrar was a young and competent politician. Two generations of his family have served Pakistani politics with devotion, competence and transparency.<\/p>\n

Dawn<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ISLAMABAD: The opposition Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) on Friday criticised Prime Minister Imran Khan and accused him of calling the media a mafia. In a series of tweets, PML-N spokesperson Marriyum Aurangzeb says that an “incompetent, incapable and selected” prime minister is saying that there is a mafia in the media. “It is shameful, regrettable […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[9],"tags":[4,123],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistanfoemonitor.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8281"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistanfoemonitor.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistanfoemonitor.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistanfoemonitor.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistanfoemonitor.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8281"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pakistanfoemonitor.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8281\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistanfoemonitor.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8281"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistanfoemonitor.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8281"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistanfoemonitor.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8281"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}