I think I got the solution. What I had to do is replace the "\u003d" with "="
"tbUrl":"http://t1.gstatic.com/images?q\u003dtbn:ANd9GcRpZyXXWBk0TJuU6PCdvrgrU7QckCJQ5DP96iyLc6uLx1bQn4EvBZDFLCk"
becomes
"tbUrl":"http://t1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRpZyXXWBk0TJuU6PCdvrgrU7QckCJQ5DP96iyLc6uLx1bQn4EvBZDFLCk"
Hope it helps other people who faced the same issue.