No, Mumbai’s 2012 Azad Maidan Riots Did Not Break Out Over Support for Gaza

The gathering was called in order to denounce communal violence in Assam, which had started in July 2012.

The 2012 Azad Maidan protests were held to denounce the communal clashes in Assam.

(Source: X/NDTV/Altered by The Quint)

A set of photos, showing arson and rioting, is being shared on social media, with a few paragraphs of text talking about the 2012 Azad Maidan riots in Mumbai, Maharashtra.

What is the claim?: The text mentions how on 11 August 2012, when the Indian National Congress (INC) had its government in the Centre as well as the state of Maharashtra, "Raza Academy had gathered over five lakh Muslims to show support for the Gaza strip."

• It goes on to mention how this gathering left the entire city of Mumbai in ruins, adding that if the Congress were in power today, the same crowd would have destroyed government property now as well.

An archive of this post can be seen here.

(Source: X/Screenshot)

(For archived versions of more posts with the same claim, click here and here.)

The Quint received a query for this claim's verification on its WhatsApp tipline as well.

Is it true?: The claim is misleading. An estimated 50,000 people had gathered at Mumbai's Azad Maidan to protest against the 2012 Assam riots.

How did we find out?: Using '2012 Azad Maidan riots' as keywords, we looked for news reports about the incident.

This led us to a report published by The Economic Times on 11 August, 2012, which mentioned that the protest took place over riots in Assam, which happened earlier that year.

The protest was held in order to denounce communal violence in Assam, which started in July 2012.

(Source: The Economic Times/Screenshot)

• It added that Mumbai-based Muslim organisation Raza Academy had called for people to gather at Azad Maidan, to denounce the violence in Assam. The protest, however, turned violent.

• Another report by India Today, published on the same day, corroborated these details.

• As per an article published by NDTV in November 2012, 80 people were charged for the riots in Mumbai, which claimed two lives and left 52 people injured, including 44 police personnel.

Who was in power?: In 2012, the Congress was in power in Maharashtra, with with Prithiviraj Chavan as the state's chief minister. The Manmohan Singh-led UPA II government was in power at the Centre.

Where are the photos from?: Social media users shared four different photos with the claim. All of these photos are from the 2012 Azad Maidan protest, which was held to denounce the communal violence in Assam.

We found the same photos in news articles about the same event, across different publications. (Click here to see news articles with photos one, two, three, and four).

(Swipe to view all images.)

We came across this photo in a NDTV article about the riots.

We came across this photo in an article by The Hindu about the riots.

We came across this photo in an article by India Today about the riots.

We came across this photo in a Firstpost article about the riots.

What happened in Assam in 2012?: In 2012, communal clashes broke out in Assam between the state's indigenous Bodo people and Bengali-speaking Muslims.

• The latter were accused of being "illegal immigrants from Bangladesh" by the Bodo people, and the conflict led to as many as a 100 deaths, as per PTI.

• By December 2014, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) had arrested five people in connection to the violence and found that an Assam police constable, Mohibur Islam, had triggered the violence, reported Times of India.

Conclusion: Social media users are sharing details about the 2012 Azad Maidan riots in Mumbai over violence in Assam, falsely claiming that the protest was held in support of the Gaza strip.

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