Authors
Shaminder started off his career as a freelance journalist for a consulting and research firm. He has been a Political Strategist and Media Manager. Before joining Newschecker, he worked with various reputed media agencies like Daily Post India, PTC News.
Claim:
A Facebook user shared a video in which a few men and women can be seen jumping off the balcony of a building claiming that amid the coronavirus pandemic, women are flouting the lockdown norms and are going out for shopping. An archive version of the video can be seen here.
Verification:
A video, which shows few men and women jumping off the balcony of a building, is being massively shared across various social media platforms claiming that amid the coronavirus pandemic, women are flouting lockdown norms and are going out shopping. We found that the claim is being shared on social media with identical claims.
We discovered that the video is widely being shared on Facebook, and WhatsApp.
The caption of the viral video, when translated to English, reads Breaking news: these women can’t live without shopping even during the lockdown. This video is from Kanpur, where the cops locked the showroom, but these women hid in the storeroom. Muslims can never change.
Several readers sent the image to Newschecker’s WhatsApp helpline number for verification.
Fact Check:
As we began fact-checking the viral claim, we listened to the video carefully. At two minute eleven second mark, the person in the video can be heard saying ‘Chapa pada hai Bhai, FIA wale ka,’ which means that the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) has raided the place.
What does FIA stand for?
According to Wikipedia, The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) is the border control, criminal investigation, counter-intelligence, and security agency under the control of the Interior Secretary of Pakistan, tasked with investigative jurisdiction on undertaking operations against terrorism, espionage, federal crimes, smuggling as well as infringement and other specific crimes.
Now, with the help of relevant keywords, we performed Google search and found the video on the YouTube channel Pakistan current affairs,’ uploaded on June 30, 2015. We analyzed the viral video and the video uploaded on the YouTube frame to frame and established that it is the same video viral on social media. The caption of the video reads, ‘Sex workers fleeing after FIA raid at a brothel in Karachi.’
During our search, we came across a report by Pakistan news channel ARY News. The caption of the video uploaded five years ago reads, ‘Watch exclusive video of sex workers fleeing after FIA raid at a brothel in Karachi.’
The same video was uploaded by a Facebook user, Jibran Waghani, on June 13, 2015.
During our search, we also spotted a board of a restaurant named ‘Hot N Spicy.’ Also, a wall painting of the Zen academy can be spotted in the video. We performed a search on Google maps and found that Hot n Spicy and Zen academy, both are located in Khadda Market, Karachi, Pakistan.
The exact location where the viral video was shot can be seen here in the Google Street View. Here below is the similarity between viral video and Google street view.
Conclusion:
It is evident from our fact check that the video viral on social media, which shows men and women jumping off the balcony of the building, is from Karachi in Pakistan and is as old as 2015. The viral video has no connection with the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
Tools Used
- Google Search
- YouTube Search
- Media reports
- Facebook Search
- Google Maps
- Google Street View
Result: Misleading
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Authors
Shaminder started off his career as a freelance journalist for a consulting and research firm. He has been a Political Strategist and Media Manager. Before joining Newschecker, he worked with various reputed media agencies like Daily Post India, PTC News.
