Fake Check: Old photo linked to fake claim about Hanuman Chalisa vs Namaz

New Delhi, Apr 26: Amid the raging Hanuman Chalisa row, a photo of Muslims offering Namaz is being shared on social media with a claim that Maharashtra CM Uddhav Thackeray is trying to appease the minority community by allowing Namaz outside the Bandra station.

However, the image is old and has no relation to the ongoing controversy regarding loudspeakers and Hanuman Chalisa in Maharashtra.

The photos shared by Twitter users, raising this question that can mislead many people, is from 2012 when Muslims were offering namaz in front of Bandra Railway Station in Mumbai, Maharashtra. The same set of images were used in the past too, to spread fake news.

A simple reverse-image search on Google will lead you to an article published by The Atlantic in the year 2012.

The caption of the image is as follows: Indian Muslims offer prayers on the last Friday of Ramadan outside the Bandra railway station in Mumbai, on August 17, 2012. The photo has been credited to Punit Paranjape of AFP.

It should be noted that the controversy over the Hanuman Chalisa and Azaan flared in Maharashtra earlier this month, just ahead of the elections for India's richest municipal body - the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation or BMC - with the BJP and Raj Thackeray's Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) raising the issue to target the ruling Shiv Sena.

BJP and MNS workers in several parts of Maharashtra took to playing the Hanuman Chalisa from loudspeakers after a call-to-arms by Raj Thackeray at a rally in Mumbai on the occasion of the Marathi New Year festival Gudi Padwa.

A BJP leader in the state even offered to bankroll loudspeakers to play the Hanuman Chalisa in public places.