Old Pakistan video of petrol station blaze does not show 'gas price hike protest in 2023'
- This article is more than one year old.
- Published on February 10, 2023 at 06:48
- 4 min read
- By Anuradha PRASAD, AFP India
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The video was shared here on Twitter on January 30, 2023. It has been viewed more than 27,000 times.
The caption reads “Lahore #Petrol pump set on fire after increase of rs 35 in petrol. People of #Pakistan are very angry with their Goverment, Army and ISI. (Sic)”.
“#PakistanEconomy #PetrolDieselPrice #Petrolprice Current situation of pakistan and they want Kashmir,” the comment further reads, pointing at the decades-old conflict between India and Pakistan over the disputed Himalayan territory of Kashmir.
Pakistan is facing its worst economic crisis in 48 years, with inflation at a 48-year high and less than $3.1 billion of reserves in the state bank – enough to cover just 18 days of imports, according to AFP’s report here.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) agreed to help Pakistan with bailout conditions that the prime minister described as “beyond imagination”, including a hike in artificially low petrol prices that were capped to help low-income families.
But the years-old video does not show a protest against the price hikes.
The video -- which has circulated in news reports since 2020 -- was filmed after a petrol station was set on fire in Narowal, in Pakistan’s Punjab province, by people protesting against fuel cartels.
Pakistan faced a drastic petrol shortage in June 2020 as a result of fuel hoarding by cartels in the country known officially as oil marketing companies.
According to a report published on July 5, 2020 by The News, a Pakistani media outlet, "Petrol pump owners said that they faced a shortage of fuel supply because suppliers (also known as Oil Marketing Companies or OMCs) failed to supply the required quantity of fuel."
"On June 10, the federal cabinet took serious notice of what it called an artificial shortage of petrol in the country and Prime Minister Imran Khan ordered punitive action against those responsible for it," the report said.
Old protest video
A reverse Google search of a keyframe of the viral video found a Facebook post by Pakistani media outlet A Plus News published on June 13, 2020.
The post's Urdu-language caption translates as: “Breaking news from Narowal where the public has staged a great demonstration against the petrol pump mafia. Citizens of Punjab's Narowal have set fire to the petrol pump that's not giving petrol.”
“Citizens say: 'You take the profits but now when petrol is cheap, why have you stopped it? The people have finally turned on the mafia. This is the first case in Pakistan of people rising against the petrol mafia on their own.”
Below is a screenshot comparison of the video in the misleading posts (left) and the A Plus News video report (right):
A red canopy on the gas station can be spotted in both the frames encircled in green by AFP.
AFP geolocated the gas station using Google Maps to Admor Petrol Pump, where the “puma” logo and red canopy in the videos are also visible:
Below is another screenshot comparison of the YouTube video of the petrol pump (left) and the photo of a sign at the pump on Google Maps (right):
The protest was also covered by another Pakistani media outlet, Star News, here on June 12, 2020.
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