A post with a notice, supposedly from Ananathapura lake or Shree Ananthapadmanabha Swamy temple, quashing the rumours about the temple’s crocodile Babiya’s death, is being shared on social media. The post description reads, ‘The news about passing away of the crocodile turns to be fake. After seeing this i deleted my earlier message. Regret for this.’ Let’s verify this post through this article.
Claim: Ananathapura lake temple releases a circular quashing the rumours circulating regarding the death of the temple’s crocodile ‘Babiya.’
Fact: The Ananathapura lake temple’s notice is real, but it was released in 2019 when fake rumours were spread about the death of ‘Babiya’, the temple’s crocodile. However, Babiya lost its life at the age of 75 on 09 October 2022. Hence, the claim made in the post is MISLEADING.
Running a keyword search on the internet led us to various news reports on the death of the crocodile, Babiya, which lived in Ananthapura lake temple in Kerala. The Hindu reported that ‘The crocodile which attracted several devotees and visitors was found dead in the temple lake on Sunday night.’
Reportedly, Babiya only ate rice and jaggery offered at the temple and lived on the temple premises for more than seven decades. More news reports on Babiya’s death can be read here, here and here.
To know more about the post, which contains a clarification supposedly issued by the Ananthapura lake temple, we performed a reverse image search on the post’s image. It led us to the temple’s official website, which contained the same circular from the viral post. Titled ‘Clarification on fake news about Divine Crocodile’ Babiya‘, this circular was posted on the temple’s website on 18th January 2019. Reportedly, the temple’s administration released this because fake news regarding the death of ‘Babiya’ was spreading on social media. Clearly, the viral post is incorrectly sharing the old clarification message issued by the temple as a recent one issued in the context of Babiya’s death.
To sum up, this clarification message from Ananathapura lake temple on the fake news of its crocodile Babiya’s death is from 2019.
