Video of Pak Street Vendor Painting Fruits Shared with False Claim
The video is from Pakistan’s Afzalpur where a fruit vendor was caught spray painting fruits in broad daylight.
CLAIM
A video of a fruit vendor spray painting litchis is doing the rounds on social media with a claim that the incident happened in Maharashtra’s Lonavala.
The claim along with the video reads, “लोनावला (मुंबई पुणे हाईवे पर) आजकल लिची खुब बिकने आई है। लिची को देखते ही मुह मे पाणी आ जाता है। खाने से पहले ईस विडीओ को देखो। और आगे इतना वायरल करो के इनकी दुकान दारी पुरी पुरी बंद हो जाय।” [Translation: Litchis are being sold in Lonavala (Mumbai-Pune highway) these days. These litchis are very tempting. Do watch the video before eating and forward it so that it goes viral.]
The video has been massively shared by other Facebook users with the exact same claim.
TRUE OR FALSE?
The video actually pertains to an incident that happened in Pakistan’s Afzalpur back in August 2018 where a street vendor was caught spray painting fruits in broad daylight by a British tourist.
WHAT’S THE TRUTH?
We broke down the video into several keyframes using a Google Chrome extension called InVid and then conducted a reverse search using Yandex search engine on one of the frames.
We then came across an article by Daily Mail titled ‘British tourist catches Pakistani street vendor red-handed SPRAY PAINTING green grapes that made her aunt 'very ill’. According to this article, the British tourist filmed the vendor after she spotted him spraying paint on litchis.
The visuals of the news piece matched with that of the viral video.
Evidently, an old video from Pakistan is being falsely attributed to Maharashtra’s Lonavala.
(Not convinced of a post or information you came across online and want it verified? Send us the details on Whatsapp at 9643651818, or e-mail it to us at webqoof@thequint.com and we'll fact-check it for you. You can also read all our fact-checked stories here.)
(At The Quint, we are answerable only to our audience. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member. Because the truth is worth it.)