Indian media watchdog orders TV channels to remove anti-Muslim reports
NBDSA directs Zee News and Times Now Navbharat to delete videos promoting “mehendi jihad” and “love jihad” conspiracy theories
NEW DELHI, India (MNTV) — India’s top media regulatory body has ordered two pro-government television networks to take down videos accused of spreading Islamophobic propaganda, after finding that their coverage of fabricated “jihads” violated broadcasting ethics.
The News Broadcasting & Digital Standards Authority (NBDSA) — a self-regulatory body overseeing private broadcasters in India — directed Zee News and Times Now Navbharat to remove segments promoting the conspiracy theories of “mehendi jihad” and “love jihad.”
The decision follows a complaint filed by journalist and media researcher Indrajeet Ghorpade, who accused both channels of “deliberately fomenting communal hatred against Muslims.”
According to the complaint, Zee News aired a report alleging that Muslim men posing as henna artists spat on mehendi (henna) applied to Hindu women to “spread infection” or “convert them to Islam.”
The channel also ran scrolling banners urging viewers to boycott Muslim mehendi artists — coverage that the NBDSA ruled was “devoid of factual basis” and “likely to incite communal hostility.”
Times Now Navbharat was also found guilty of distorting facts in its coverage of a so-called “love jihad” case from Bareilly, in which a Muslim man was sentenced to life imprisonment after a Hindu woman claimed she had been deceived into conversion.
The channel continued broadcasting inflammatory coverage even after the woman later testified that she had been pressured by her family and Hindu nationalist groups to make the allegation.
Ghorpade welcomed the NBDSA’s ruling but said it exposed deeper failures in India’s self-regulatory media system. “These cases reveal how the framework continues to fail in holding powerful media houses accountable for communal propaganda,” he said.
Despite having the authority to levy financial penalties, the NBDSA only directed the channels to delete the objectionable videos.
Rights observers say such episodes underscore how sections of India’s mainstream media have evolved into propaganda arms of Hindu nationalist politics, routinely targeting Muslims under the guise of journalism and amplifying extremist narratives.
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