In a shocking display of editorial negligence — or ideological complicity — The Times of India, one of India’s so-called premier newspapers, referred to Jammu and Kashmir as “Indian-controlled territory” in its April 25 print edition while reporting on the Pahalgam terror attack.
This terminology seems no accident — it is the language of anti-India propaganda, routinely used by foreign agencies and separatist sympathisers. That it made its way into a national daily raises serious questions about intent, not just oversight.
What is this @timesofindia ??
I actually want to tweet in punjabi here pic.twitter.com/AFUluCCh7a
— KJS DHILLON🇮🇳 (@TinyDhillon) April 25, 2025
After facing backlash from alert netizens, TOI issued a weak apology on X (formerly Twitter), claiming the error was due to a photo caption sourced from a foreign news agency. It further downplayed the matter, saying it appeared in “approximately three of over fifty daily editions,” and assured that the mistake was not in its main editions, online coverage, or e-paper.
Statement from The Times of India
We sincerely apologise for an incorrect caption that appeared in a limited number of our early Uttar Pradesh editions today, in reference to Jammu & Kashmir. The error was due to a photo caption used by a foreign news agency and appeared in…
— The Times Of India (@timesofindia) April 25, 2025
But critics aren’t buying it. The pattern is familiar: slip in the narrative, test the waters, and when caught, issue a non-apology. Over time, these ‘errors’ find their way into academic citations, historical narratives, and international discourse, all helping to further an anti-India agenda.
We tweeted a wrong representative illustration with a story on a religious conman yesterday. We apologise for the mistake. The wrong tweet was deleted as soon as we realised the error. The story itself had the correct generic graphic representative image. https://t.co/HEFxTA9248
— The Times Of India (@timesofindia) July 24, 2018
This isn’t TOI’s first brush with narrative manipulation. Their editorial choices are often glaringly selective — Islamic preachers in conflict with the law are suddenly called “tantrics”, and religious buildings become “prayer rooms” only when it suits the secular spin.
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