A clip, viewed over 200,000 times, is being shared alongside claims that an officer of the Punjab police can be seen thrashing women collecting food parcels distributed by the Punjab government during the month of Ramadan.
The claim is false. The video is old and is unrelated to the recent distribution of food bags to the poor, under the Punjab government’s Nigehban Ramadan Package.
“In the era of a Form 47 chief minister [Punjab], people will get slaps instead of flour bags,” claimed an Urdu-language post on X, formerly known as Twitter, on March 19. The user also shared a 27-second video showing women being hit by a cop.
The post has been reposted 2,400 and liked 3,700 times, while the video clip has been viewed over 84,000 times, to date.
Similar claims were also shared here, here and here.
The video was recorded in 2019, and not in 2024. This fact was also confirmed by several police officials in Punjab.
A combined keyword and Google reverse image search found that the video was shared by several social media users in 2019.
The Punjab police spokesperson also confirmed that the video was recorded on June 22, 2019, outside a local court in Multan.
While Rao Mehtab, the incumbent station house officer (SHO) at the Chahelyek police station, Multan, told Geo Fact Check that the incident happened in the vicinity of his police station back then, after a court ordered a woman to return home with her husband.
The police claim that family members of the couple attacked the police first, in response to which a cop slapped the women. Mehtab also shared the first information report (FIR) with Geo Fact Check of the incident which took place in 2019.
The Punjab police spokesperson also explained that Salamat Ali, the cop seen in the video, was later issued a show cause notice by the Punjab police.
Geo Fact Check then contacted Salamat Ali, who further confirmed that he was indeed the SHO who could be seen in the video slapping women, adding that it was recorded in 2019.
Meanwhile, the official X account of the Multan police has also debunked the online claims.
With additional reporting by Nadia Khalid.
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