False: Uttar Pradesh government demolished a mosque in Prayagraj after a Pakistani flag was hoisted over it.

Context

A 30-second clip of an excavator demolishing a mosque while bystanders watch the destruction has gone viral on social media. In the video, a green flag can be seen hoisted atop the mosque, along with two other flags. The Hindi caption of a Facebook post, translated to English, sharing the clip said that the Yogi Adityanath led-government in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh ordered the demolition of the mosque in Prayagraj after the national flag of Pakistan was hoisted over it. Videos of the incident, captured from different angles, have been shared by several users on Facebook and Twitter with identical captions. 

In Fact

The flag on the mosque's dome, alleged to be Pakistan's national flag is green and bears a crescent moon and a star. On examining the keyframes in the video, we found that the flag raised on the structure was the Islamic flag, not the Pakistani flag. The primary distinction between the Islamic and Pakistani flags is that the latter has a thick white vertical stripe on the hoist side, along with the crescent and the star.

After searching for more details about the recent mosque demolition in Prayagraj, earlier known as Allahabad, we came across a news report published by the Hindi daily Live Hindustan on its website. The report included four photographs of a mosque being demolished. A comparison of the four photos available in the news report to the frames of the viral video showed that the two captured visuals of the same lime green painted mosque being demolished. The same three flags can be seen atop the dome of the mosque, along with a minaret in the two sets of visuals. A building, ostensibly a house, on the left of the mosque, also bearing three flags, can be seen in the video and one of the photos in the Live Hindustan report. Both sets of visuals also show the same excavator, made by the company Liu Gong, in the process of demolishing the mosque. According to the report, the mosque, known as the Shahi Masjid, is situated in the Saidabad market of Prayagraj. The report said the mosque was demolished on January 9, 2023, in the presence of local police. The local administration had reportedly notified the mosque's management before undertaking the mosque demolition, which was carried out as part of a road-widening project. The mosque is considered to be a historic monument believed to have been built during the reign of Sher Shah Suri. The report mentioned that the mosque was built on land belonging to the Public Works Department (PWD), and several shops in its surroundings were also razed before its demolition.

The Shahi Masjid demolition issue has been contentious since at least 2022. A report by The Times of India, published in August 2022, said that the Allahabad High Court had dismissed a writ petition filed by the Shahi Masjid's management opposing the planned demolition of the mosque for widening the GT road. While the committee argued that the mosque had existed since before independence, the court, while dismissing the petition, noted that, based on a government report, the mosque encroached on public property. The high court said the title of the land could be decided by a civil court. Mohammad Babut Hussain, the imam of the Shahi Masjid, told the media that the administration carried out the demolition even though the issue was pending in a lower court. No news story mentioned any alleged instance of the mosque hoisting the national flag of Pakistan while reporting on the developments around its demolition. Therefore, claims abounding on social media that the mosque had hoisted the national flag of Pakistan are incorrect.

Following the demolition, the Uttar Pradesh government, headed by Chief Minister Yogi Aditynath, was criticized by many for reducing a historical mosque into rubble. Many activists and opposition parties have criticized CM Yogi for promoting 'Bulldozer raj' or the rule of the bulldozer for allegedly demolishing “illegal" houses of criminals unlawfully. 

In order to quell rumors and false claims around the Shahi Masjid demolition, the Prayagraj Police Commissioner on January 16 posted a clarification on Twitter stating that the demolition of the mosque was carried out in line with the road-widening project. "The mosque was removed on 09.01.2023 with a consensus made after the talks with the officials of the Public Works Department by the members of the mosque committee," read the English translation of the commissioner's statement, originally in Hindi. The commissioner urged people to refrain from disseminating unreliable and inaccurate information on social media.

The Verdict

The claim that the Uttar Pradesh government ordered the demolition of a mosque in Prayagraj after the Pakistani flag was hoisted over it is false. The mosque had hoisted an Islamic flag, and it was razed under a road widening project.