Video Editor: Purnendu Pritam
CLAIM
A viral video on social media alerts people to think before donating material and check whether the donation is being misused.
One such video was shared by Rahul Srivastav, additional SP, UP Police in which a conversation is taking place between a shopkeeper and the customer. The customer says that the he has extra ration which was given to him by other people and that he wants to sell it. On being questioned by the shopkeeper, it is established that the customer wants to buy “luxury items” like shampoo, soap, in place of the ration that was given to him by others.
The video is being shared on Twitter and Facebook with the same claim.
The Quint received a query on the claim being made in the video on its WhatsApp helpline.
TRUE OR FALSE?
While the incident did happen it is not from India, but from Pakistan. A video uploaded by Pakistani news channel Capital TV on 7 April mentioned that the incident took place in Karachi.
WHAT WE FOUND OUT
We divided the video into multiple keyframes using InVid and reverse searched each of them on Google which led us to a video uploaded on Facebook by ‘Pak TV24’ on 8 April.
The caption of the video, when translated using Google translate reads: “Imran Khan said in his first speech that some people will get so much ration that they will start selling.”
We then searched on YouTube using keywords “man selling ration shop pakistan” and found two videos uploaded by Pakistani media outlets namely Capital TV and Urdu News 24 7.
The caption along with Capital TV video dated 7 April suggested that the video is from Pakistan’s Karachi.
Further, we could identify the brand of one of the products kept at the shop using a clearer video and a longer version of the video that The Quint received on WhatsApp.
The packet mentions ‘Shan’ and ‘Biryani’ and a text written in Urdu, which have been highlighted in yellow. The same packets can be seen lying in the shop at the end of the viral video.
On translating the text, we found that it mentions ‘Pulao Biryani.’
We found several products sold by Shan Foods on an e-commerce website delivering in Pakistan which had similar packaging in terms of the colour scheme, logo of the brand, design and a text in Urdu that varied from products to products.
As per the website of Shan Foods, the company is located in Korangi Industrial Area in Pakistan’s Karachi. While the company delivers products in several places such as Pakistan, Australia, Asia, Rest of South Asia, Europe, etc the packaging of products differs from area to area.
For instance, in Pakistan, the packaging of ‘Pilau Biryani’ has text in Urdu.
However, in rest of south Asia, the packaging has text written in English.
It is thus evident that a video from Pakistan wherein a man is selling ration given to him by others is being falsely shared in the Indian context.
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