No, this is not a photo of the Kumbh Mela, a Hindu festival in north India
- This article is more than one year old.
- Published on January 17, 2019 at 10:30
- Updated on January 29, 2019 at 03:04
- 4 min read
- By AFP India
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The image has been posted widely across social media, including here on Facebook where it has been shared more than 2,600 times since it was published January 11, 2018.
The photograph shows tents spread over a massive area with glittering street lights, and claims that it is part of the Kumbh Mela in Prayagraj, a city formerly known as Allahabad in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh.
Below is a screenshot of the misleading post.
The misleading post has a caption in Hindi language that translates as: “The incredible view of Kumbh is for the first time since independence! And then you ask, what did Modi and Yogi do for Hindus?”
Modi refers to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and Yogi is Yogi Adityanath, chief minister of Uttar Pradesh. Both belong to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
The Kumbh Mela runs from 15 January to March 4, 2019.
The text in the photo states: “The city of Prayagraj is glittering like gold, see for yourself fellow country men, this the the rule of BJP.”
The photo was posted multiple times on Facebook and Twitter with similar claims, for example here and here.
Local media and news websites shared the photo and incorrectly stated it was Prayagraj.
However, a reverse image search of the photo found the image had previously been widely posted online, often titled ‘night view of Mina.’
Mina is a neighborhood of Mecca in Makkah Province, in western Saudi Arabia.
The earliest version of the image AFP was able to track down is the one below, posted on Instagram on August 19, 2018 by a user ‘Haramain.info2’. The location of the photograph was given as Mecca.
A similar image taken from a different angle appears on Google Earth in Mina at a location known as ‘Mina Towers in Mecca.’
The exact location in Mina was verified by AFP using instant street view from a lower vantage point during the daytime.
Below is the screengrab of the street view image alongside the image used in misleading post, where the same conical tents can be seen.
Five distinctive features, marked as A, B, C, D and E in both screenshots, depicts the same structures.
‘A’ shows the same tin shed, while ‘B’ points out to the cellular network tower. Identification ‘C’ is the structure of an entrance. Mark ‘D’ is the road signage and ‘E’ is the curve of the road.
Below is a screenshot of a different view of the tents in Mina captured by an AFP photographer on August 22, 2018.
Here is an AFP photo taken at Prayagraj on January 9, 2019, one week before the commencement of the Kumbh Mela. The tents in the photos below are not conical in shape, and many tents are multicolored, unlike those in Mina which are entirely white.
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