No, These Photos Don’t Show Shaheen Bagh’s Bilkis Bano Enroute Ayodhya

The first photo shows a woman on her way to Ayodhya, while the second photo shows a farmer from Punjab.

The photos claim that they show Bilkis Bano of Shaheen Bagh fame.

(Photo: Altered by The Quint)

A collage of two photos is being shared to claim that the elderly woman seen in the photos is Bilkis Bano, also known as Bilkis Dadi, who rose to prominence for her resilience during the protest at Shaheen Bagh against the contentious Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA).

However, we found that the women in the photos is not Bilkis Bano, as claimed.

In one photo, Arvind Kejriwal greets one elderly passenger who had departed from Delhi for the visit to Ram Temple in Ayodhya, while the other photo shows Mohinder Kaur, a farmer from Punjab, who was earlier misidentified as Bilkis Bano.

CLAIM

The photos are being shared to take a dig at Arvind Kejriwal and goes on to say ”meet the biggest thug Bilkis Bano", one who ate "biryani at Shaheen Bagh", "badam halwa at farmers' protest", and now "she leaves for Ayodhya".

An archived version of the post can be seen here.

(Source: Facebook/Screenshot)

Several social media users have shared the photo along with the same claim and the archived links can be seen here, here and here.

WHAT WE FOUND

We found that the two women seen in the photos is not Bilkis Bano. Let's take a look at both the photos.

IMAGE 1

The claim states that the woman seen in the image is Bilkis Dadi.

(Source: Twitter)

We conducted a Google reverse image search on the photo and found the image on the official Facebook page of Kejriwal posted on 3 December.

Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Friday, 3 December, had flagged off the train to Ayodhya and interacted with the devotees.

Under the Delhi government’s Mukhyamantri Tirth Yatra Yojana, the first train carrying 1,000 devotees to the Ram Temple in Ayodhya had departed from the Safdarjung Railway station in Delhi.

Photo from Arvind Kejriwal's official Facebook account. 

(Source: Facebook/Screenshot)

Further, a simple comparison between the two photos reveal that the two women aren't the same.

Comparison between Bilkis Bano and the woman on the train. 

(Photo: Altered by The Quint)

Though we have not been able to independently identify the woman in the picture, but it is clear that it doesn't show Bilkis Bano.

IMAGE 2

The claim states that the woman seen in the image is Bilkis Dadi.

(Source: Twitter)

The woman in this photo is Mohinder Kaur, a farmer from Bahadurgarh Jandian village in Punjab’s Bhatinda.

The Quint's WebQoof team had earlier debunked a similar claim when Kaur was misidentified as Bano by many, including Bollywood actor Kangana Ranaut in 2020.

Speaking to The Quint in December 2020, Kaur had said that the picture in circulation was from a protest which was held in Bathinda.

Clearly, this photo also doesn't show Bilkis Bano and shows Mohinder Kaur from Punjab.

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