Photo of fountain sculpture in Pakistan morphed to claim city square named after PM Modi

On February 24, Sardar Patel Stadium in Ahmedabad, Gujarat was renamed Narendra Modi Stadium. With a capacity of 1.3 lakh spectators, it has now become the world’s largest cricket stadium. Following this, a picture of a statue of Prime Minister Narendra Modi installed at a roundabout has gone viral on Facebook and Twitter. The photo is being shared with captions like, “What’s happening is worthy of condemnation. It’s not the tradition in our country to name intersections, stadiums, and hospitals after people that are still alive.”

User Lakhan Kashyap Baliyaan shared this picture on the Facebook group अंधभक्त धुलाई केंद्र. His post racked up over 600 shares at the time of writing.

Several other Facebook users also made posts about the same claim.

The image has also been spreading widely on Twitter. (Archive link)

निंदनीय ये हो क्या रहा है,
जीते जी किसी के नाम के चौक-चौराहे,स्टेडियम-अस्पताल की परंपरा हमारे देश में नही रही !!! @INCIndia pic.twitter.com/RyMneQcIB7

— Lokesh Sharma (@Lokeshtiloliinc) February 27, 2021

Morphed image

Narendra Modi’s statue

Alt News performed a reverse image search of the viral photo using Yandex. This led us to a photo of the fountain on a website called pakistanpoint.com. In place of a Modi statue, a sculpture of a kettle and teacup form the fountain here. The image caption states this is Station Chowk in Pakistan’s Faisalabad.

We also performed a keyword search with the terms ‘Narendra Modi wax statue’ on Google. In the image results, we found a picture identical to the statue seen in the viral image. This is a marble statue for sale on the e-commerce website IndiaMart.

‘Narendra Modi Chowk’ sign

In the viral photo, a board behind the fountain reads ‘Narendra Modi Chowk’. A keyword search of related terms led us to an NDTV story about an incident in Bihar’s Darbhanga, where a BJP worker’s father was killed. NDTV reported that the victim’s family alleged that their family was attacked after facing opposition for renaming a town square to Narendra Modi Chowk. Meanwhile, the police claimed that the row was sparked by a property dispute and it had nothing to do with the name change.

BJP leader Giriraj Singh also tweeted the image. The board reads ‘Narendra Modi Chowk Babu Bhadwa, Darbhanga’.

We have compared the original picture and the viral photo below. This confirms that the statue of Narendra Modi, the board with ‘Narendra Modi Chowk’ in the background, and the ‘Narendra Modi Chowk’ text below the statue have been morphed into the original photograph.

A photograph of a fountain at Station Chowk in Pakistan’s Faisalabad was edited with a picture of a marble statue of the Indian prime minister.