(Editor's Note: The story was first published on 28 November 2019 and is being republished from The Quint's archives in the light of the images recirculating on the 29th anniversary of the Babri Masjid demolition.)
CLAIM
The Supreme Court on 9 November put the Ayodhya dispute to rest by ruling in favour of the construction of a Ram temple at the disputed land.
Following this, many have been sharing pictures claiming to be of the demolished Babri Masjid on social media.
The caption along with the pictures reads, "ब्रिटिश म्यूजियम ने बाबरी मस्जिद की कुछ तस्वीरें शाया की (Translated: The British Museum has some photos of Babri Masjid)."
A post on Facebook featured another collection of images with a similar claim.
The pictures were shared with the caption, “Babri Masjid Beautiful photos. at British. Library (sic)."
TRUE OR FALSE?
The claim shared with these pictures is false, as the pictures in question are not of the Babri Masjid.
The Quint did a reverse image search of all the pictures and found out that five out of the six pictures shared are of different mosques from different regions.
Let's take a look at them one by one.
IMAGE 1
The mosque in this image is not the Babri Masjid, but Motijheel Mosque in Murshidabad, West Bengal. On conducting a reverse image search on the picture, we found it on the official website of Murshidabad Municipality.
IMAGE 2
This image is of the Jami Masji, Gulbarga Fort, in Karnataka. We found an article on Encyclopedia Britannica website featuring the image, identifying the structure as 'Jami Masjid' in Karnataka.
The image was credited to John Henry Rice.
IMAGE 3
This image shows the Yesil Cami (Green Mosque) in Bursa, Turkey.
On conducting a reverse image search, we came across website Library of Congress which identified the structure. Taking a cue from there, we looked up Google maps and found similar images of the structure.
IMAGE 4
This image is of Ibrahim Rauza, Bijapur, Karnataka.
On conducting a reverse image search, we came across a stock image on dreamstime.com which gave us a cue that the image is of Ibrahim Rauza. We then looked for this location on Google Maps, and were able to see the images of the same corridor.
IMAGE 5
The image is of the Noh Gunbad mosque, Balkh, in Afghanistan. We were able to find the image on Stock image website, Alamy.
IMAGE 6
This picture, however, is of the Babri Masjid from the early 1900s, as an article on Fronline reports, attributing it to ‘The British Library Board’.
Clearly, a bunch of unrelated pictures have been used to claim that they are of the 16th century mosque, but the truth is, they are not.
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