Action against Zee News, Times Now Navbharat for Islamophobic reporting

The News Broadcasting & Digital Standards Authority (NBDSA) has issued orders against mainstream news media channels, Zee News and Times Now Navbharat, for their recent coverage of conspiracy theories like ‘mehendi jihad‘ and ‘love jihad‘, calling it blatant Islamophobic.

The order stated the news channels violated the Code of Ethics for broadcasting. It was passed based on a last year’s complaint filed by media researcher and journalist Indrajeet Ghorpade, who charged the mainstream channels of spreading communal hate against the Muslim community in India.

Zee News reporting on ‘mehendi jihad’

Zee News had aired a series of reports alleging that young Muslim men posing as henna artists spat on mehendi applied to Hindu women and also held a motive for forced religious conversions. It ran a string of headlines titled, ‘Mehendi Jihad par de dana-dan,’ and ‘Lathi se lais rahenge, jihadiyon ko rokenge,’ among the few, encouraged the boycott of mehendi artists and aired anti-Muslim slogans.

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Times Now Navbharat has also violated the Code of Ethics in its coverage of a controversial ‘love jihad’ case from Uttar Pradesh, NBDSA said.

Recently, a Bareilly district judge sentenced a Muslim man, Mohammad Aalim, to life imprisonment after a Hindu girl claimed he tricked her into converting to Islam. Later, the girl confessed before the court that she was forced by her parents and Hindutva organisations to make such statements against Aalim.

However, Times Now Navbharat ran a full segment on this, conveniently omitting the Hindu girl’s confession. Tickers such as ‘Uttar Pradesh mein Love Jihad, toolkit Pakistan’ and ‘Jhuthe naam ka afsana, maqsad musalman banana’ flashed on the channel throughout.

News channels asked to delete videos; no fines imposed

While the NBDSA directed both channels to remove the objectionable videos, it refrained from imposing monetary penalties. “NBDSA, which has the power to levy fines ranging from Rs 2 lakh to Rs 25 lakh, directed the channels to just delete the videos. These cases reveal how the self-regulatory framework continues to fail in holding powerful media houses accountable for communal propaganda,” Ghorpade said in a statement.

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