PM Imran says fake news being run against him

ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Imran Khan has said the press has defamed him by running fake news against him. The way deliberate campaigns were run to destabilise the government, had it been in any other country, those media outlets would have been shut down.

The prime minister said during his visit to China, a piece of false news was published saying that "I was going to review the CPEC." When I spoke about the promotion of the private sector for employment generation, another erroneous impression was created that the government was not willing to provide jobs.

He said this distortion is deliberate and not an error. The prime minister said the media must realise that if some misfortune happens to the country, everybody would suffer from its consequences. "I had advised the former president Gen (retd) Pervez Musharraf to liberalise the media and launch TV channels and I was the one who benefited the most." The prime minister said he had a 40-year-old relationship with the media. "I have seen free and liberal press, but the vicious manner in which I was attacked it never happened anywhere in the world."

The prime minister said he lives in his personal house and pays all his bills except the travel and security arrangements that are paid by the government. He said he did not have a camp office and was accused of pressurising the CDA chairman to regularise Bani Gala. He said when he complained against this news to Pemra, a stay was taken against it.