Ayodhya Ram Mandir

The Ayodhya Ram temple is situated in Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh. The temple is built on the site that has been disputed and is built where the Babri Masjid once stood. BOOM debunked false claims regarding Ayodhya Mandir which went viral recently.

In December 2021, during the anniversary of the Babri Masjid demolition in Ayodhya, a photo circulated on social media claiming to depict the mosque. BOOM found that the photo is actually from Jamia Mosque in Gulbarga, Karnataka.

In January 2024, misinformation around the consecration ceremony had gone viral. Misleading posts around Indian cricketer Virat Kohli had gone viral, who didn't attend the Ram temple's consecration ceremony. One such example was a fake photo purporting to show Kohli at the event. BOOM used tools like Hive Moderation to detect signs of manipulation in the image, like blended hands and blurry details typical of AI-generated content. Around the same time, a misleading video was circulating, falsely claiming to show Kohli at the Ram Mandir inauguration on January 22, 2024. BOOM found that the video shows Kohli attending a Ganesh Chaturthi event in Mumbai, in September, 2023.