Photo From Telangana Falsely Shared As Cops Cleaning Mosque In West Bengal

A photo from 2016 of Telangana police cleaning a mosque as part of the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan at religious spots including temples, is being shared with a false and communal claim it shows West Bengal police cleaning mosques.

The photo is being shared with a caption in Hindi that translates to, "Have you ever seen the police cleaning the temple..? No! But In Bengal, Mamata Didi's police is cleaning the mosque, for namaz.. how do you feel..?"

(Original text in Hindi - क्या आपने कभी पुलिस को देखा है मन्दिर साफ करते हुए? नहीं ना? पर....बंगाल में ममता दीदी की पुलिस, मस्जिद साफ कर रही है, नमाज के लिए.. देखिये.. कैसा लगा..?)

FACT CHECK

BOOM found that the photo is old and was shot in 2016 when the Telangana police conducted a drive to clean mosques, temples and plant trees as part of the Swacch Bharat Abhiyan.

A reverse image search on the photo showed that it had been shared by a Hyderabad based Facebook page called AK News in 2016.

The page shared four photos including the viral photo showing the police cleaning a mosque. The caption with the photos said it is from Bhainsa area in Telangana where the local police cleaned the Panjesha mosque. The viral photo can be seen in the bottom right corner of the post.

We further found a 2016 post from the verified Facebook account of the Telangana State police where they shared three photos showing the local police cleaning temples and planting a tree. The caption said, the Deputy Superintendent of Police of Bhainsa and police officers from Mudhole, Tanoor, Lokeshwaram "conducted Swatch Bharath programme and clean the Temples and Mosques and planted plants at Mudhole."

We further ran a search for Telangana police + Swacch bharat abhiyan and found YouTube videos from 2016 uploaded by ETV Telangana which showed the police cleaning streets, mosques and temples.

In one video titled, Adilabad Town Cops Conducted Swachh Bharat the anchor says the police conducted Swacch Bharat Abhiyan at various places including, "temples, mosques and other prayer locations". In the same video at the 23 second counter we can the police cleaning a temple. Watch video here

Bhainsa which is now under the Nirmal police jurisdiction was earlier under the limits of the Adilabad district police.

The police in 2016 led a series of cleanliness drives as part of the Swacch Bharat Abhiyan and cleaned prayer spots for all religions including temples.