Modi did NOT release Ramayana stamps ahead of Ram mandir bhoomi pujan

Hyderabad: Social media is flooded with news relating to the Ayodhya Ram mandir bhoomi pujan as the scheduled date, 5 August, draws closer. There have been claims that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has released special Ramayana stamps ahead of the occasion.

Some Facebook users have also shared photos of the stamps.

Archived posts can be accessed here and here.

Fact check:

The Ramayana postage stamps were released in 2017 by Mr. Modi in Varanasi. NewsMeter did a reverse image search and found a news article by Scroll from 2018. We found pictures of the stamp and upon careful observation discovered the year 2017 on the stamps.

We also searched Google using the keywords "Ramayana stamps released in 2017" and came across the official website postagestamps.gov.in. The website has featured the same postage stamps and said these are 11 commemorative postage stamps issued by the India Post on 22 September 2017.

We also found an NDTV article about the event where Mr. Modi released the same postage stamp in Varanasi on 22 September 2017. "There have been many stamps on Lord Ram, but this is the first of its kind which depicts different aspects of his life. This has not been done in the past. I am happy that I have got the opportunity to do this from the holy soil of Manas," the PM had said.

Also, Mr. Modi had tweeted about the event.

Hence, the claim that Mr. Modi released the Ramayana stamps ahead of the Ram mandir bhoomi pujan is FALSE.