Claim: A video shows people in a scuffle over a bag of flour amid rising inflation.
Fact: The video is, in fact, from September 2022, when a scuffle broke out among some flood victims over bags of ration provided by the government.
On 9 January 2023, a member of Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party and former finance minister, Shaukat Tarin, posted a video on his Twitter account showing men fighting over a bag of flour. Tarin’s post, which was viewed over 1.3 million times, was captioned as follows:
“Have never seen this before in this country. What have we done to Quaid’s Pakistan?”
The video — which has gained more than 354,000 views as of writing time — was shared amid a worsening flour crisis in Pakistan. Prices have shot up and the sensitive price index for the week ending 5 January 2023 showed an increase of 30.6% on a year-on-year basis, while inflation for December 2022 was 24.5% on the same basis.
Fact or Fiction?
Soch Fact Check used reverse image search tools to ascertain the source of the video via screenshots of its key frames.
We found two tweets from 6 September 2022 by ARY News journalist Hassan Hafeez and Twitter user @Fawad_khan35 carrying the video, as well as a screenshots from the clip in a Facebook post dated 7 September 2022, a post with over 140,000 views on Facebook page ‘Sindh View’ from 5 September 2022, and another from 19 September 2022 on Facebook page ‘Human Rights Council of Pakistan’.
ایک بہت بڑا انسانی المیہ جنم لے چکا ہے۔سیلاب زدگان کے لئے ایک بوری راشن حاصل کرنا زندگی کی آخری خواہش بن چکا ہے۔ #سیلاب_زدگان_مددکےمنتظر pic.twitter.com/pE0OS2vvbW
— Hassan Hafeez (@hassanarynews) September 6, 2022
The tweet by Hassan Hafeez — which includes a hashtag that translates to “flood victims are waiting for help” — was captioned as follows:
“ایک بہت بڑا انسانی المیہ جنم لے چکا ہے۔سیلاب زدگان کے لئے ایک بوری راشن حاصل کرنا زندگی کی آخری خواہش بن چکا ہے۔ #سیلاب_زدگان_مددکےمنتظر [A great human tragedy has arisen. For the flood victims, getting a sack of ration has become the last wish of their life.]”
The post by ‘Sindh View’ was captioned as follows:
“راشن تي جھيڙو ھڪ مسڪين پنجن ڏينهن کان بکايل ٻچن لاء ھڪ ڪٽو کڻي وڃي رھيو ھو ته ماڻهن اچي ڌڪ ھڻي ڦري ورتو.
[A fight [breaks out] over a flour bag. People snatched a flour bag from a man whose children were hungry for five days and beat him.]”
The video was also shared in different Reddit threads here, here, and here in September 2022.
Soch Fact Check concludes that the viral video is not recent and had, in fact, surfaced during the time PTI was in power.
Virality
Soch Fact Check found that the video was tweeted and retweeted by anchorpersons Shiffa Yousafzai, Sabir Shakir, and Amir Zia. Former federal ministers Murad Saeed, Fawad Chaudhry, Zartaj Gul Wazir, and Ali Haider Zaidi also shared the video.
The Express Tribune posted the video on its verified Instagram account, @etribune, with the caption, “Pakistan is grappling with a flour crisis as parts of the country reported shortages of wheat. Markets have become chaotic and stampedes were reported in several parts of the country.”
The @etribune post was viewed more than 227,000 times.
Facebook pages ‘PTI Central Media Department’, ‘PTI Norway’, and ‘PTI official UAE’, as well as PTI German President Tariq Javaid, also posted the misleading video, while a post by Instagram user @imrankhansoldiers2 was viewed more than 11,800 times.
Indian websites also took up the video, publishing it here in the Tamil language, as well as here and here in Hindi.
Conclusion: The video has no connection to the ongoing flour crisis but is, in fact, from September 2022, when a scuffle broke out among some flood victims over bags of ration provided by the government.