A 2-minute video is widely circulating on social media. It is being claimed that the clip depicts an incident from Maharashtra’s Lonavla, near the Mumbai-Pune highway, where a fruit-seller was spraying red paint on litchi.
लोनावला (मुंबई पुणे हाईवे पर) मे आजकल लिची खुब बिकने आई है। लिची को देखते ही मुह मे पाणी आ जाता है। खाने से पहले ईस विडीओ को देखो। और आगे इतना वायरल करो के इनकी दुकान दारी पुरी पुरी बंद हो जाय।
Posted by Monu Jain on Wednesday, 11 March 2020
The accompanying message reads, “लोनावला (मुंबई पुणे हाईवे पर) मे आजकल लिची खुब बिकने आई है। लिची को देखते ही मुह मे पाणी आ जाता है। खाने से पहले ईस विडीओ को देखो। और आगे इतना वायरल करो के इनकी दुकान दारी पुरी पुरी बंद हो जाय।”
The clip is massively viral on Facebook.
The fruit-seller tells the person shooting the video that he sells the litchi for Rs 350 per kilogram. Another vendor joins the conversation and says that people do not buy the fruit if it has a greenish hue and not red.
FACT-CHECK
Alt News broke the video into multiple keyframes and we were redirected to several media reports from September 2018.
According to a report in The Sun, the incident is from Pakistan’s Afzal Pur. A British tourist Layla Khan, 23, shot the video of the fruit-seller after her aunt ate his grapes and contacted diarrhoea. The vendor was spraying the red paint on grapes and not litchi, as claimed on social media.
Daily Mail had also reported the incident and uploaded the video on September 10, 2018. As per the channel’s description, “A British tourist issued a warning to holidaymakers after she spotted a street trader spray painting white grapes red. Layla Khan, 23, and her cousin investigated food at the street market because her aunty suffered sickness and diarrhea after eating the grapes.”
A 2-year-old video from Pakistan is therefore being shared on social with the false claim that a fruit-seller in Lonavla is spraying red paint on litchi.