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New Delhi: India\u2019s News Broadcasting and Digital Standards Authority (NBDSA) has found Zee News and Times Now Navbharat guilty of violating its Code of Ethics by airing Islamophobic and misleading programmes promoting the fabricated \u201cMehendi Jihad\u201d and \u201cLove Jihad\u201d conspiracy theories.<\/p>\n
According to Kashmir Media Service, the rulings came after media researcher Indrajeet Ghorpade lodged formal complaints accusing the channels of spreading anti-Muslim hate speech and misinformation aimed at demonising India\u2019s Muslim community.<\/p>\n
NBDSA determined that Zee News had breached ethical journalism standards by telecasting segments alleging that Muslim mehendi artists were targeting Hindu women for religious conversion. The channel\u2019s broadcasts carried sensational headlines such as \u201cMehendi Jihad par de dana-dan\u201d and repeated unverified claims that Muslim artists were \u201cspitting into mehendi\u201d or luring Hindu clients into conversion plots. The reports lacked factual basis, verification, or any counterview, and were further amplified through inflammatory rhetoric and boycott calls against Muslim artisans.<\/p>\n
Similarly, Times Now Navbharat was pulled up for biased reporting in a case from Uttar Pradesh involving a Muslim man, Mohammed Aalim, who was sentenced to life imprisonment under the so-called \u201cLove Jihad\u201d narrative. The channel echoed a local judge\u2019s communal remarks while ignoring the woman\u2019s court testimony that she had been coerced by her parents and right-wing groups to file a false complaint.<\/p>\n
Although the NBDSA directed both networks to remove the objectionable videos and issued formal admonishments, critics including Ghorpade condemned the lenient response as ineffective. He argued that the authority\u2019s reluctance to impose monetary penalties upto INR 25 lakh effectively shields hate-based media practices.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis weak form of self-regulation allows hate propaganda to thrive,\u201d Ghorpade said, adding that Hindutva-aligned media, judiciary, and regulatory bodies were \u201ccollectively protecting communal narratives.\u201d He urged journalists and civil society to demand independent media oversight mechanisms to combat the growing normalization of Islamophobia in India\u2019s mainstream media landscape.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
New Delhi: India\u2019s News Broadcasting and Digital Standards Authority (NBDSA) has found Zee News and Times Now Navbharat guilty of violating its Code of Ethics by airing Islamophobic and misleading programmes promoting the fabricated \u201cMehendi Jihad\u201d and \u201cLove Jihad\u201d conspiracy theories. According to Kashmir Media Service, the rulings came after media researcher Indrajeet Ghorpade lodged …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":185038,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-185037","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-india"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/kmsnews.org\/kms\/assests\/2025\/10\/mehandi.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kmsnews.org\/kms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185037","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kmsnews.org\/kms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kmsnews.org\/kms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kmsnews.org\/kms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kmsnews.org\/kms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=185037"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/kmsnews.org\/kms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185037\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":185039,"href":"https:\/\/kmsnews.org\/kms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185037\/revisions\/185039"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kmsnews.org\/kms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/185038"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kmsnews.org\/kms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=185037"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kmsnews.org\/kms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=185037"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kmsnews.org\/kms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=185037"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}