Fact Check: No, police in Gujarat did not seize weapons from a mosque

Many social media users are sharing a collage of pictures of swords and knives with the claim that they have been seized from a mosque in Gujarat.

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India Today Fact Check

Claim
Weapons found in a mosque in Gujarat.
Fact

The weapons were seized by Gujarat police from a shop on the Rajkot-Ahmedabad highway in 2016.

Did police in Gujarat seize a huge amount of weapons from a mosque? Many social media users are sharing a collage of pictures of swords and knives with the claim that they have been seized from a mosque in Gujarat. One of the pictures in the collage shows the alleged accused too.

India Today's Anti Fake News War Room (AFWA) has found that the pictures are from 2016. The arms were seized from a shop on the Rajkot-Ahmedabad highway.

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Facebook user Amar Singh Bidhuri posted the viral photo collage on Tuesday. Referring to the birth anniversary of legendary freedom fighter Chandrashekhar Azad on the day, he wrote, "Azad sacrificed his life fighting for this country's freedom. But those who took his life were not foreigners but two-faced Indians. That history is ready to be repeated. These weapons were found in only one mosque in Gujarat. This is a conspiracy to eradicate Hindus."

He then adds sarcastically, "India is going to be a world leader."

This post has been shared by almost 800 Facebook users at the time of filing this story. The archived version of the post can be seen here.

Comments such as "weapons are in every mosque" and "Hindus should also keep weapons in their homes" were made on this post.

Incidentally, the same collage went viral in 2016 and 2017 as well with different claims. In 2016, social media users claimed that the arms were seized from a mosque, while the next year, a video of the incident went viral, claiming that the weapons were seized from a temple.

Some other Facebook users have shared the same post while the same photos and claim had been shared on Twitter in 2016. The archived version of the Twitter post can be seen here.

AFWA did a reverse search of the photo collage and found that this photo is actually from Rajkot in Gujarat. In March 2016, Gujarat police had raided a shop on the Rajkot-Ahmedabad highway and seized these weapons that were being openly being sold there.

News of this seizure can be read in The Times Of India. Gujarat Headline too carried the news in which one of the photos from the viral photo collage can be seen.

In 2017, Smhoaxslayer had debunked posts with this very photo collage which were shared claiming that the seizures were from a temple in Rajkot.

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