2008 image of Muslims praying at a mosque in New Delhi is falsely being shared as ‘the last namaz offered at the Babri Masjid (Ayodhya)’

An image of Muslims offering prayers at a dilapidated mosque is being shared on Facebook claiming that it shows Muslims offering the last namaz at the Babri Masjid before handing over that site to the Hindus. Let’s try to check the authenticity of the claim.

Claim: Image of Muslims offering their last namaz at the Babri Masjid site before handing over it to Hindus.

Fact: The image shows Muslims offering Eid al-Adha prayers at the Feroz Shah Kotla Mosque in New Delhi in 2008. Hence, the claim is FALSE.

From the article of ‘News18’ published on 10 November 2019, it was found that the Supreme Court in its Ayodhya verdict has directed the Central government to constitute a trust in three months to oversee the construction of a temple for Hindus on the 2.77-acre site in Ayodhya. In 1992, Babri Masjid, a four-century-old structure that existed at that site was destroyed.

When the image in the post is cropped and subjected to Google reverse image search technique, an archived article of ‘Indian Express’ was found in the search results. The article titled ‘Eid al-Adha celebrations’ had a gallery of seventeen pictures in it. The photo in the post can be seen as fourth among those pictures. The description seen along with the photo is ‘Muslims offer Eid al-Adha prayers at the Ferozshah Kotla Mosque in New Delhi’ and also, photo credits were given to ‘AP images’. When searched in ‘AP Images’ photo stock with relevant keywords, the same image was found. The information here regarding the image confirmed that it is related to Muslims offer Eid al-Adha prayers at the Ferozshah Kotla Mosque in New Delhi. From that description, it was also found that the image was taken in 2008.

To conclude, a 2008 image of Muslims praying at a mosque in New Delhi is falsely shared as ‘the last namaz offered at the Babri Masjid (Ayodhya)’.

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