A video in which a man can be seen sprinkling water on wheat sacks is being massively shared on social media amid the ongoing farmers’ protests. People are claiming that this is a practice adopted by farmers in Punjab who sprinkle water on grains to speed up the rotting process and then sell these grains to distilleries and breweries.
However, the said video is from an incident which took place in 2018 in Haryana’s Fatehabad district. Several news reports also pointed out that the person in the video is not a farmer. The incident allegedly happened at a granary owned by a trader associated with the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD).
CLAIM
The video was shared on social media with the claim, “This is the scene across Punjab, wheat bought at MSP, water is sprinkled on bags to make the grains rot then it is sold to distillery & breweries by the five star farmers who are agitating on the border of Delhi! Big money is involved??[sic.]”
The video was shared by a Twitter user, garnering over 67,900 views at the time of writing this article.
The claim was also shared by Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) Youth Wing leader Sourabh Choudhary.
The video was shared widely on Facebook as well.
WHAT WE FOUND OUT
A reverse image search directed us to several Facebook posts from 2018, which carried the same video. Next, we searched on Google with ‘Man sprinkling water on wheat sacks’ and found a news bulletin by ABP News, dated 8 May 2018.
Clearly, the viral video is not recent, as claimed.
The bulletin states that the video is from Haryana’s Fatehabad district, where a man was caught on camera pouring water on sacks of wheat to increase their weight.
The matter was being investigated by the Fatehabad Market Committee, who reportedly found that a trader from Fatehabad Mandi’s shop number 124-B was pilfering the food grains to earn more profit. The shop is owned by INLD leader Kuljeet Kuladia.
The incident was also reported by Punjab Kesari and News 18 Hindi in April 2018. These reports stated that water was being sprinkled over the sacks to increase their weight. Further, they added that taking cognizance of the case, the Market Committee of Fatehabad had initiated inquiry in the matter.
Clearly, an old video of an incident in Haryana has been revived to discredit the farmers’ agitation against the new farm laws.
(The Quint has reached out to Fatehabad Market Committee Chief, Sanjeev Kumar, to inquire about the current status of the case. This report will be updated as and when we receive a response.)
(With inputs from SM Hoax Slayer.)
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