Fact-Check: Media Organisations Link Old Clip to Recent Food Crisis in Pakistan

The video could be traced back to September 2022 and is unrelated to the ongoing wheat flour crisis in Pakistan.

Fact-Check | The video showing people fighting over a wheat sack is old.

(Photo: Altered by The Quint)

A 40-second long video of several men fighting over what seems to be a sack of wheat is being shared as a recent incident from Pakistan.

Who shared the clip?: Several media outlets such as Times Now, DNA India, ABP News, and Zee News shared the clip claiming that it is recent.

(Swipe right to view all the claims.)

An archive of the report can be found here. 

An archive of the report can be found here. 

An archive of the report can be found here. 

An archive of the report can be found here. 

The Quint had also erroneously used the clip in one of its videos, which has since been taken down.

Verified users share the claim: Bharatiya Janata Party MLA Dr Shalabh Mani Tripathi (archive here) shared it on his Twitter with the caption, "After Srilanka and China, now Pakistan is fighting over wheat flour. Look at the condition and be relieved that you are in Shri Narendra Modi's India."

At the time of writing this report, the video had garnered more than 9,00,000 views.

Human rights activist Jyot Jeet also shared the clip (archive here).

What is the truth?: The video could be traced back to at least September 2022 and predates the recent food crisis in Pakistan.

How did we find out?: Using InVID, a Google Chrome extension, we divided the video into several keyframes and performed a reverse image search on them.

• This led us to the viral video on an unverified Twitter handle named "Liaqat Baloch".

• It was uploaded on 6 September 2022 with a caption in Urdu, which loosely translates to, "Flood relief became a headache for the flood victims."

• One of the most devasting floods struck Pakistan last year, which affected more than 3.3 crore people.

• It sustained billions of dollars worth of damage, and over a thousand people died.

• This acted as a catalyst for worsening the situation in Pakistan, which was already gripped by an economic crisis.

• Further, we found that several other users had shared the same video in September 2022. Archives of the posts can be seen here and here.

So, what is happening in Pakistan?:

• The food prices in the country have reportedly experienced a massive hike sending panic across the country.

• According to the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS), the inflation rate is at 24.5 percent as of December 2022. Pakistani PM Shehbaz Sharif also made a plea for help at an international conference. 

• According to a recent report published by The Express Tribune, a Pakistani daily, the wheat flour crisis has worsened in the country, with prices of 20 kilograms (kg) of flour bags jumping to Rs 2,000 and 3,000 in the open market. 

Conclusion: While we could not independently verify the location or context of the video, it is clear that the video is old and not related to the ongoing wheat flour crisis in Pakistan.

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