Fact Check: No, police did not seize weapons from Bijnor mosque
Photos reportedly showing weapons being recovered from a mosque in Bijnor, UP, has gone viral on social media....
By Newsmeter Network Published on 16 Nov 2020 4:59 PM GMT
A Twitter user shared the photos on 8 November and wrote, "Thousands of guns seized from a madrasa in Bijnor, UP. A stockpile of swords and ammunition was also recovered. The director of the madrasa, along with six others was arrested. They were planning a massive conspiracy to riot. They forgot that Bijnor is in UP and the CM is Yogi. Now there are calls to shut down all madrasas. No one will be spared."
FACT CHECK:
The claim that the photos are from a recent incident in Bijnor is FALSE.
NewsMeter checked for reports regarding seizing of guns from a madrasa in Bijnor and found a report by The Times of India from 2019. According to the report, the incident did take place in Bijnor but in 2019. Out of the four viral images only one is in connection to this event.
Image 1: This is the only photo that is related to the 2019 incident. According to the Bijnor police, the weapons seized were part of an illegal arms racket and six people were arrested.
Image 2: We found a post on Tumblr from March 2019. The Bijnor incident took place in July 2019 and since these photos have been on the Internet before the arrest, it is clear that it is related to the event.
Image 3: We found a tweet by Shamli (UP) police who had shared this photograph. According to the tweet, the photograph shows arrests that took place after a raid at a madrasa in July 2019.
Image 4: NewsMeter had earlier fact-checked this photo that was passed off with another claim. (read here) This image is in connection with the busting of an illegal weapons racket that was operating from a hotel near Kuchiyadad village along the Rajkot-Ahmedabad highway by the Rajkot crime branch and the Kuvadava Road police.
Evidently, old images are being shared with the claim that weapons were recently seized from a Bijnor madrasa. Hence, the claim is FALSE.
