India TV Airs News with Fake Photos

No doubt many of my readers will be aware of the horrendous debacle at India TV which resulted in them broadcasting a report with a fake photo of Syedna Mohammed Burhanuddin (TUS) “performing” the nikah of the Taleban terrorist, Baitullah Mehsud in Afghanistan.

Of course, Syedna Mohammed Burhanuddin (TUS) never performed this nikah and during the time of the said nikah, Syedna Mohammed Burhanuddin (TUS) was in Mumbai, not Afghanistan.

The TV channel has published an apology and also aired an apology for the indicident which can be seen here:

Source: Youtube

The source image and the doctored image can also be seen below:

India TV Source Image
India TV Source Image
India TV Fake Image
India TV Fake Image

Without making any attempt to justify what is obviously abhorrent or non-existent editorial control, I do have a suspicion regarding how this came to pass. Rather than a deliberate attempt to slander Dawoodi Bohras, it is more likely the case that the “reporter” (and I use this word in the loosest term possible) did a Google Search on “nikah”, and found these results:

Google Search Results for nikah
Google Search Results for "nikah"

The first usable photo became the “source” for the doctored “news report”. While this in no means justifies what happened and it should never have happened to begin with, it does mean that objectively, there was likely no intended malice towards Dawoodi Bohras.

Does it excuse the event? Absolutely not. Does it mean that it’s acceptable for news stations to doctor images to fake news events? No way. Everything that happened here should never have happened. But I think it does provide an insight into how it came about.

Also of interest to some readers may be the search engine referral statistics for Planet Bohra on 8 April, 2009. I’ve made these available as a PDF.

3 thoughts on “India TV Airs News with Fake Photos”

  1. Yes a distinct possiblity, as the reporter or the people at India TV may be focussed on pepping up the news broadcast. If so, it gives them a good lesson, as reporting is not merely clicking on search engines, copy – paste, morphing job. They are not paid to sit at the comp table in air conditioned comforts, and fool the masses.

  2. India TV is Best Known for it’s Fake News.90% of its news are fake and They try to Exploit people’s Religious belief by connecting their fake news with religiion.

  3. india tv knows only fake news.i would request india tv to show proper news.
    india tv shows irrelavent news about family matters and every thing a breaking news.
    india tv repeats a show 10 times.when i open india tv i always see baba ramdev in aap ki aadalat

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