The News Broadcasting and Digital Standards Authority on Tuesday directed five news channels to take down eight shows that linked a National Council of Educational Research and Training textbook to a “love jihad” conspiracy.

The complaint concerned the misrepresentation of a fictional letter in an old NCERT Class 3 Environmental Studies chapter titled Chitti Aayi Hai. The letter, written by a character named Reena to another character, Ahmed, was wrongly projected by the television channels as evidence of a love jihad conspiracy, according to the complaint.

Love jihad is a Hindutva conspiracy theory that Muslim men trick Hindu women into romantic relationships with the aim of converting them to Islam. The Union home ministry has told Parliament that Indian law has no provision

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