2019 Photo From Bangladesh Shared as Owaisi's Welcome in UP

The image is from Chittagong, Bangladesh, in 2019 where devotees took part in a religious procession.

A photo is being shared on social media with the claim that a huge crowd had gathered at the Uttar Pradesh Gate in Ghaziabad to welcome All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) chief Asaduddin Owaisi.

The photo is being shared in the context of the upcoming elections in Uttar Pradesh, which are scheduled to be held in 2022.

However, we found that the claim is false and the photo is from Chittagong, Bangladesh, where people took part in the 'Jashn-e-Julush’ procession to observe the holy Eid-e-Miladunnabi, which marks the birth and death anniversaries of Prophet Muhammad.

CLAIM

The claim along with the image reads: यूपी गेट गाज़ियाबाद की तस्वीर असदुद्दीन ओवैसी के इस्तक़बाल मे.

(Translation: Photo from UP gate, Ghaziabad to welcome Asaduddin Owaisi.)

Several social media users shared the claim and the archived versions can be found here and here.

WHAT WE FOUND

We conducted a reverse image search and found a video that indicated that the photo was from a procession of ‘Jashn-e-Julush’ in Chittagong, Bangladesh. The video was uploaded in 2019.

We then matched some frames of the video with the viral image and found several similarities.

In another image, one can see that the location is the same as seen in the viral image.

Next, we noticed that the images from Bangladesh carried a watermark 'Sakib Chowdhury'. We looked up the user on Facebook and came across his profile where he had uploaded more photos from the event, which clearly show that the pictures are from Chittagong.

We also found a similar image of the procession on the Daily Sun, an English newspaper based out of Bangladesh, published on 12 November 2019.

The caption read: "Thousands of Muslim devotees take part in a procession ‘Jashne Julush’ in Lalkhan Bazar area of Chattogram (Chittagong) on Sunday to observe the holy Eid-e-Miladunnabi."

The same claim had earlier gone viral with a claim that it shows people protesting against the Citizenship Amendment Act in Mumbai. We had debunked the claim back then.

Clearly, an image from the holy procession of Eid-e-Miladunnabi is passed off in the internet with the claim that a crowd had gathered to welcome Owaisi in UP.

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