Hamid Mir is no stranger to bans as he told BBC's Stephen Sackur in an episode of Hard Talk which aired on Monday. The well known journalist was taken off air on Geo for a "fiery" speech he gave following an attack of journalist Asad Toor in Islamabad in May.

"[Toor] is a young journalist and I was expressing my solidarity with him," Mir told Sackur. "So I said that when a journalist is attacked in Pakistan there is no justice and the police and law enforcement agencies always fail to identify the culprits. So if you will not provide us justice then we will be forced to mention the names of the people who we think are responsible and…"

Sackur interrupted him and asked how could he possibly name names, how could he know who attacked Toor?

Mir narrated the time he was shot in Karachi and how he named the man he held responsible for the shooting. He said he appeared before the commission set up to investigate that shooting.

"I made my statement in front of that high-powered commission, not once but twice. I was injured but I [still] appeared. I made my statement. And when the commission called the person, who in my view was responsible for attacking me or hatching a conspiracy against me, he refused to appear and never appeared and no report came out."

Mir said the same was the case with Toor. It's been two months since Toor was attacked and where is justice, he asked Sackur.

He also said he was ready to face life in prison to the charges he faces because at least people will know the truth.

When asked who he thought was really in charge of Pakistan and whether allegations of Prime Minister Imran Khan being a puppet were true, Mir replied: "Pakistan is a viewed as a security state and if you go through the autobiography of Imran Khan, which I was reading last night again and Imran Khan gifted me his autobiography with his autograph. Imran Khan himself accepted about the role of the military establishment and the role of the ISI in his autobiography in his very clear words."

He also said he feared for his life but did not intend to leave the country. He also said he did not blame his employer for not standing by him because the owner "is already [being held] at gunpoint. So my employers, the gun is already at their [temple]. So when they were asked to ban Hamid Mir, they banned me. So I can understand their problem."

You can hear the audio version of the interview here.