No, Kejriwal Didn’t Offer Namaz At Jama Masjid For New Year’s Day
The image is from July 2016 when Kejriwal had offered prayers during the month of Ramzan in Punjab.
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Video Editor: Abhishek Sharma
An image of Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal in a skull cap and scarf, offering namaz, has gone viral with the false claim that he prayed at the Jama Masjid in Delhi on the first day of 2021.
The image, however is actually from July 2016 when Kejriwal had offered prayers during the month of Ramzan in Punjab’s Malerkotla, Sangrur.
CLAIM
The image was shared with the claim, “बड़ी खब़र: साल के पहले दिन जामा मस्जिद जाकर दिल्ली के मालिक जनाब भो श्री अरविंद केजरीवाल ने पढ़ी नमाज़ देश और दिल्ली के लिये पढ़ी दुआ ।”
(Translation: “Big news: On the first day of the year, the owner of Delhi, Mr. Arvind Kejriwal, visited Jama Masjid to offer prayers for the country and Delhi.”)
The image was first shared with the false claim by Twitter account ‘LowBPNews.’ which writes that ‘their news is far from the truth.’ in their bio.
WHAT WE FOUND OUT
A reverse image search led us to an article by Hindi daily, Jansatta, dated 7 July 2016, carrying pictures of Kejriwal offering namaz.
The article carried a screenshot of the original image tweeted by AAP Punjab in 2016, with the caption, “Happy Eid to you all,” in Punjabi.
We also found the original tweet through a keyword search on Twitter.
Clearly, the image is not recent, as claimed.
Further, Kejriwal was offering prayers before breaking the Roza for Ramzan at Malerkotla, Sangrur in Punjab’s Patiala, and not at Delhi’s Jama Masjid.
With a keyword search of ‘Kejriwal namaz’ we came across images from a different angle on English daily, Hindustan Times’ Content Service, HTDS.
Credited to HT photographer Bharat Bhushan, the image was captioned, “Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal in skull cap offer prayers with devotees before opening the roza on the Holy Month of Ramzan at Malerkotla in Sangrur on July 4, 2016 in Patiala.”
With also found images of the event on Getty Images, with the same caption and credited to photographer Bharat Bhushan and dated 4 July 2016.
Evidently, an old 2016 image has been revived to falsely claim Delhi CM Kejriwal offered namaz at Jama Masjid for New Years Day.
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