Despite the floods, Pakistanis have destroyed tomatoes for religious reasons? It’s wrong

Since last June, Pakistanis have been experiencing the worst monsoon rains seen in the country in three decades. This historic rainfall resulted in flooding that caused thousands of deaths.

Another dramatic consequence of the disaster, the country’s agricultural crops are severely affected and the country has come to wait for international aid to meet its needs. Aid slowed down by difficult conditions.

However, according to a video that has gone viral on certain social networks, all help would not necessarily be welcome. We see a man filming himself with, in the background, Pakistanis who throw crates filled with tomatoes on the ground and crush them, shouting.

Misinformation Video Screenshot – Screenshot

Many Internet users have shared this video explaining that Pakistanis are destroying these tomatoes because they have been offered help by Iran, a country with a Shiite majority, a current often opposed to the Sunni current, which is the majority in Pakistan.

A statement to be taken with great caution since everything suggests that it is inaccurate.

FAKE OFF

The video was posted on Twitter by a man who calls himself Major Gaurav Arya. According to his Twitter “bio”, he is a former Indian army soldier turned television consultant. A quick search on the Internet shows that it does appear in various Indian programs that deal in particular with military conflicts.

He comments well on this video by explaining that Pakistanis destroy tomatoes because they are “considered Shia”. But one thing is immediately striking about the video: It’s a fairly rough editing. If he acts as if he were present during this scene, we notice very quickly that he filmed himself, probably in front of a green screen, and that he superimposed his image on the scene of the crushed tomatoes.

Commercial and non-religious reasons

A strong impression confirmed by some research on social networks where we find this same scene, posted by various Internet users a few days earlier, and above all… without the man in front of whom is being filmed.

Also, several national media reported the scene of these men emptying a truck to extract and dispose of the tomatoes. And their explanation is quite different. According to the Pakistani news site Dawn, it is indeed demonstrators who stopped trucks of tomatoes imported from Iran, in Mangochar in the district of Kalat, to loot them and destroy the goods.

But the reason for the protest would have nothing to do with religion. The demonstrators are local farmers and producers who protest against the importation of a commodity that competes with theirs.

Fruits and vegetables become too expensive because of the floods

Indeed, with the disasters experienced by the harvests, the price of certain foodstuffs has exploded in the country. The government of the country has decided, to fight against this inflation, to buy stocks of different products (tomatoes, onions, etc.) from its neighbors (India, Afghanistan and therefore Iran).

But these goods, available at a much lower cost than local products, would prevent Pakistanis from selling their crops which arrive on the market at this time. The demonstration, and the destruction of Iranian tomatoes, would therefore be a message sent to the authorities to ask them to give priority to local producers, already strongly affected by the floods and who would suffer, in addition, loss of income due to competition that they deem unfair.


source site