Images of a Pune-based mosque, which was temporarily converted into a quarantine facility last year has been revived by social media users with the false claim that a hospital has been set up amid a shortage of beds and oxygen in the country.
While the image is of the mosque inside the Azam Campus, the facility is no longer functioning and was shut last year, five months after it came up in April.
CLAIM
The image was shared with the claim, "Oxygen beds are being prepared in mosques. Inshallah the public will get free oxygen beds," in Hindi.
Facebook user, Mohamed Mumtaz Ahmed, also shared the image as a recent one, garnering over 4,700 shares at the time of writing this article.
WHAT WE FOUND OUT
On a reverse image search of one of the images we came across an article by Hindi daily, Navbharat Times, dated 28 April 2020.
The article states that the as Pune became a hotspot of COVID cases in March last year, the Azam College of Education decided that the hall of the mosque inside its campus would be converted into a quarantine center.
We also came across the second image on Hindi daily, Jansatta's website, in an article dated 28 April 2020.
The article further states that 80 people could be quarantined at a time inside the hall.
It must be noted that the facility provided beds for isolation and did not have the provision for oxygen at the time.
We also came across an image of the facility in a report by the Hindustan Times by photographer Pratham Gokhale, dated 27 April 2020, which is similar to the viral image.
We then reached out to PA Inamdar, chairman of Maharashtra Cosmopolitan and Education Society (MCES), who was responsible for the quarantine facility.
Inamdar informed The Quint’s WebQoof team that the facility is no longer functional and had shut down five months after it came up in April.
"We had opened it up for foreigners and all those who had no other place to quarantine. Once more facility came up and home isolation was allowed, we shut the facility," Inamdar said.
They had taken care of all essential needs of the patients including food. He further states that currently the Unani Medical College at the Azam Campus has 30 beds for COVID patients.
While the image may be old, several religious places have pitched in to help fight the second wave. The Swaminarayan Temple and the Jahangirpura Masjid in Gujarat’s Vadodara have both been converted into COVID centres. The Bangla Sahib Gurudwara in Delhi has also begun providing free meals to infected patients without any caregiver.
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