A mosque located inside the educational institute at Azam Campus in Camp has been turned into a quarantine facility for Covid-19 (coronavirus) patients. Netizens have been sharing an old image of a mosque from Pune with false claims that to make up for the shortage of hospital beds and country, the mosque is being used as a quarantine spot. The 9,000 square feet hall on the first floor of mosque has a capacity for 80 beds has been turned into a quarantine centre, informed P A Inamdar, chairman of Maharashtra Cosmopolitan and Education Society.
Facebook user, Mohamed Mumtaz Ahmed, also shared the image as a recent one, garnering over 4,700 shares at the time of writing this article. Another Twitter user also shared the image, garnering over 3,300 likes and 1,100 retweets. Some users also claimed that the image was of a mosque in Delhi.
After a thorough reverse image search, an article was retrieved by Hindi Daily, Navbharat Times, dated 28 April, 2020, in which the viral image can be seen. The article stated that as Pune became a hotspot of COVID cases in March last year, the Azam College of Education decided that the hall of the mosque inside its campus would be converted into a quarantine center.
On checking the same, it was found that the officials of the administration of the Campus offered the facility to the district administration. One of the official, Inamdar said, “We have obtained required permission from the administration and the first floor is ready for use as a quarantine facility. Our trust will also provide food to patients who will be here.”
“We are contributing whatever we can towards helping the state government in combating the Covid-19 pandemic. The mosque has all the facilities like beds, toilets, fans, electricity and other essentials needed for housing Covid-19 patients,” he said.
“If more space is required for patients here it can be handed over to the administration,” Inamdar said.
SM Iqbal, director, Muslim Co-operative Bank, said, “Giving the mosque for a quarantine facility is a good initiative. However, the Unani Hospital on the campus also has a full-fledged infrastructure while Inamdar Multispeciality Hospital in Wanowrie can also be used as a quarantine facility for patients.”
“The administration must consider the hospital first as they have the necessary facilities to provide relief to the patients. The Inamdar hospital is also run by a public trust and is eligible to be given to quarantine patients,” said Iqbal.
While the image may be old, several religious places have pitched in to help fight the second wave. Though the image is from last year, this year religious houses like The Swaminarayan Temple and the Jahangirpura Masjid in Gujarat’s Vadodara have both been converted into COVID centres. The Bangla Sahib Gurudwara in Delhi has also begun providing free meals to infected patients without any caregiver.
