Image of Islamic flag in Chhattisgarh temple shared with false communal claim

An image of a green flag hung inside a temple with a crescent moon, star, and number 786 written on it is being shared with the claim that it is from Chhattisgarh’s Gunderdehi. It was tweeted by RRS mouthpiece Panchjanya on February 6. Panchjanya tweeted —“Islamic flag in temple!!” — without sharing any context. It gained over 4,500 retweets and more than four lakh views. (Archive)

Verified Twitter user Arpita Shaivya shared the viral image and wrote, “Maa Chandi Devi Temple, Gunderdehi Chattisgarh. Waqf Board claimed it’s their property. Our govt is busy digitizing their assets.” (Archived link)

Several Facebook accounts also made the same claim in their posts.

Screenshots of Panchjanya‘s tweet were sent to Alt News on its helpline number (7600011160) several times for a fact check.

Fact Check

Alt News performed a keyword search and found that Amar Ujala had gone to the spot for a ground report. They put out a video report with the caption, “On the one hand, when the atmosphere is heated in the country regarding caste and religion, this temple in Chhattisgarh is an example of Hindu-Muslim unity. In this temple, people of both the religions bow down together. When the doors of the temple open, first frankincense is lit and a ‘chadar’ is taken out for the ‘mazaar’ outside. After that, both the communities worship Maa Chandi. The thing that stands out is that there is also an Islamic flag on the idol of the goddess.”

In the video report, we can see the flag in question inside the temple at the 0.05-minute mark.

In the video, individuals from both the communities and the priest of the temple say that the practice of Hindus and Muslims praying together is an age-old tradition.

Later, Aaj Tak and Republic Bharat also reported on the issue. This claim was earlier fact-checked by Digital Forensics, Research and Analytics Centre (D-FRAC).

To sum up, the image of an Islamic flag hanging over a Hindu deity in a Chhattisgarh temple where Hindus and Muslims pray together was shared without context on social media with misleading claims. Several of the posts claimed the temple was taken over by the Waqf Board.