Old Photo of Demolition Drive From Gujarat Shared as Uttar Pradesh

The photo showed the demolition of a mosque illegally built on Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation's land in Gujarat.

Fact-Check | The photo showing the demolition of a dargah in Ahmedabad was shared as one from Uttar Pradesh.

(Photo: The Quint)

An old photograph showing a religious structure being demolished has been shared on the internet with a claim that it is in Uttar Pradesh.

However, we found that the viral image was from Gujarat's Ahmedabad. It showed the demolition of illegal structures by the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC), which included a religious structure that was built on AMC's land.

CLAIM

People who shared the post wrote "#हां तो अब लिखो नाइस पिक #उत्तरप्रदेश " in the caption, which translates to "Say nice picture now, #UttarPradesh".

A link to the post can be found here.

(Source: Facebook/Screenshot)

Other users on Facebook also posted the viral image with the same caption, links to which can be found here and here.

We also found the same photo being shared by users back in 2018.

WHAT WE FOUND OUT

We conducted a reverse image search on Google and found the photo in an article published on a website called "HinduGujarati" in 2014.

An archive of the post can be found here.

(Source: HinduGujarati/Screenshot)

On adding keywords "Ahmedabad dargah demolished" to the reverse image search, we found a tweet by a Twitter user from 7 August 2014, which carried the same image along with some other images.

An archive of the post can be found here.

(Source: Twitter/Screenshot)

The photographs in the tweet had a watermark of DeshGujarat and a link to an article from the Gujarat-based news publication.

According to the article, the AMC had demolished a religious structure and other illegal constructions on 6 August 2014 after finding out that they were built on AMC’s land reserved for waste disposal plant.

"A dead body of Gulu Baba buried in this dargah structure was unearthed and shifted to a nearby graveyard in presence of relatives of Gulu Baba and Maulvis," the article further said.

We found more photos of the demolition drive posted by the news publication on their Facebook page, which showed AMC's vehicles at the site.

A link to the post can be found here.

(Source: Facebook/Screenshot)

Evidently, an old photograph showing a demolition drive in Gujarat's Ahmedabad has been shared by people as one from Uttar Pradesh.

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