A post claiming that British Museum has released inside pictures of Babri Masjid is doing rounds on social media. Few images alleged to be that of Babri Masjid are also being shared in the post. Through this article let’s verify the claim made in the post.
Claim: Inside pictures of Babri Masjid released by the British Museum.
Fact: British Museum has not released any inside pictures of Babri Masjid. Images of different monuments across the globe are being shared as those of Babri masjid. Except for one (for which no credible source is found), all the other images are not related to Babri masjid. Hence the claim made in the post is FALSE.
On reverse image search of the photo shared in the post, a similar photo was found in an article published in Britannica website about Kalaburagi city. Kalaburagi, also called Gulbarga, is a city in the northeastern part of Karnataka state. In the article, it is mentioned that the photo shows the view of Jamia Masjid in Gulbarga, Karnataka. When we searched for more information using these keywords ‘Jamia Masjid in Gulbarga’, a similar photo was found on the Alamy website. In this website also, it is mentioned that it shows the view of Jamia Mosque in Gulbarga.
On reverse image search, we found that the mosque in the image is not Babri Masjid, but Motijheel Mosque in Murshidabad. We can find this image on the official website of Murshidabad Municipality.
On reverse image search, a similar photo from another angle was found on the ‘Archnet’ website. On the website, it can be read that the photo was clicked in the ‘Yeşil Cami’ mosque (Turkey). A similar colour photo clicked recently can be found on the ‘Shutterstock’ website.
On reverse image search through Yandex, a colored image of the same monument was found on a travel website. On the website, it is described that the photo is related to ‘Ibrahim Rouza, Bijapur (Karnataka)’. A search with the keywords ‘Ibrahim Rouza Arches’ led us to ‘Flickr’ where we found similar images.
When we ran a reverse image search we came across a document which featured this image. The document describes the images as ‘Window of the Mosque of Ibu Tulan’. When we searched on google with ‘Window of the Mosque of Ibu Tulan’ as the keyword we found a similar image on V&A, a leading museum of art and design website. On the website the image is described as the Window grille in the mosque of Ahmad ibn Tulun, Cairo.
We found this image on Alamy, and according to the description on the website, the image is of Noh Gunbad Mosque in Balkh, Afghanistan.
When we searched for formation regarding this image we found many social media posts attributing the image to Babri masjid. However, we could not find any credible source to conclude that this image is related to Babri masjid.
Also, when we searched on google using the keywords ‘British museum released Babri masjid photos’ we could not find any news reports related to this. In the wake of foundation laying ceremony of Ram temple in Ayodhya on 05 August 2020, posts like these are being shared.
To sum it up, except for one (to which we could not find a substantial source) all the remaining images are not related to Babri masjid.
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