NDTV enters television’s ‘Thook Jihad’ hall of shame

NDTV, once synonymous with sober television journalism, has been formally cautioned by the News Broadcasting and Digital Standards Authority (NBDSA) for doing what it once prided itself on never doing: turning a roti-maker spitting in food into a story about “Thook Jihad”.

A complaint was filed by activist Utkarsh Mishra on December 20, 2024 over a segment published on December 6, 2024. At the time of writing this report, the segment was available on NDTV MP-Chhattisgarh and NDTV Rajasthan.

The complaint said that in the impugned broadcast, an anti-social activity of one roti maker, spitting in rotis, was reported as “Thook Jihad” to give it a communal angle. “The broadcast showed an incomplete video in which the accused claims that he was instructed to spit in the rotis by his mentor. In the full viral video, the accused claimed that this act was done by himself, and his mentor had not instructed him to do so,” the complaint pointed out.

“The interview of the accused, conducted by a private citizen, was labelled a police

inquiry in the broadcast. The usage of the word jihad to describe this antisocial incident is a clear violation of the guidelines to prevent communal colour in reporting crimes and the guidelines to prevent hate speech, as it seeks to reinforce existing stereotypes against Muslims. This trend of normalising discourse around antisocial incidents as incidents of jihad advances the agenda of specific interest groups, including extremist pro-Hindutva organisations and conspiracy theories endorsed by certain political leaders; and thus also amounts to a violation,” stated the complaint.

In its order on May 19, 2026, the NBDSA decided to close the complaint by cautioning the broadcaster to be careful in the future and to avoid such “sweeping generalisations”. 

“NBDSA observed that the incident/video from Meerut of a person spitting in food reported in the impugned broadcast was undoubtedly shocking and condemnable, and no objection could be raised to the broadcaster’s coverage of the incident. The problem lay with the contextualisation and characterisation of this isolated incident,” read the order.

“The sweeping generalisation of this incident as ‘thook jihad’ and the suggestion that this was not an isolated incident, but was a widespread occurrence, without substantiating the same, amounted to violation of the Code of Conduct, particularly guidelines against Racial and Religious Stereotyping. It was the broadcaster’s assertion that it did not refer to any specific community in its coverage of the incident. However, even in the absence of explicit attribution, the use of the term ‘jihad’ in the report referred to a particular community. NBDSA noted that the broadcaster had voluntarily removed the impugned broadcast, albeit without prejudice.”

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