Bengaluru: Taking actions upon the complaints which were filed by the Bengaluru based Campaign Against Hate Speech (CAHS), the National Broadcasting Standards Authority (NBSA) came up heavily on three television news channels for their prejudiced coverage of the Tablighi Jamaat and created a religious congregation.
On the complaint filed against the panel discussion “Is Tablighi Jamaat deliberately destroying India.?”, which was aired on April 2, 2020, the National Broadcasting Standards Authority (NBSA) has issued a condemnation to Times Now “for telecasting such a hatred programme on a sensitive issue which can create communal dissension amongst different communities”.
The National Broadcasting Standards Authority (NBSA) reproved censured on English news channel Times Now and also fined two Kannada channels also known as News 18 Kannada and Suvarna News, in that ‘they had targeted the members of Tablighi Jamaat as well as the Muslim community intentionally’ to create hatred in February-March 2020, before the onset of COVID-19 in India.
News 18 Kannada, Suvarna News and Times Now Fined for targeted the members of Tablighi Jamaat
The NBSA, in its orders dated June 16th, 2021, released a censure to the channels for telecasting any programme that could cause communal difference of opinion.
The officials have also asked the broadcasters to take down videos of the two programmes from all the web portals and platforms.
Also the Campaign Against Hate Speech (CAHS) have also taken objections to the two programmes aired by TV18 Kannada on April 1st, 2020, on Tablighi Jamaat. The NBSA has slammed a fine of ₹1 lakh on the broadcasters payable to the National Broadcasters Association (NBA) and directed them to run an apology programme on air on June 23 for violating the Code of Ethics and Broadcasting Standards.
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Lafter on the onset of COVID-19 in India, many major media houses vilified the Tablighi Jamaat congregation for the spreading of coronavirus in the country. Many of them have even gone to the extent of blaming and defaming Muslims for the same, calling it ‘Corona Jihad’.
However, because the cases at its peak, the cases linked to the Tablighi Jamaat which was gathering in Delhi were not even more than one third of the total cases, during the virus growing stage. All the hatred against Muslims started after the elections of 2014.