A video from Pakistan of a young boy drinking water and then spitting it on garlands of flowers is being shared on social media with a false and communal claim that it shows an Indian Muslim flower seller outside a temple in India.
In the viral video, a person sitting on a bike but not seen in the frame records a young boy drinking water from a plastic cup, after which he spits it out on small garlands he is holding in his hand.
The 18 seconds video is being shared on X with false and communal spin with captions such as "Flower Jihad", and with communal claims accusing the Muslim community of spitting on flowers before selling them outside temples.
The video was posted on X with the caption, "Be careful where you buy your pooja items and flowers from! Don’t just buy because you think you are helping ‘children’ vendors. Identify them before approaching. Have you already bought puja items from poor, peaceful M vendors, then see how they keep the flowers fresh. Despite knowing Hindus still buy from them. What a shameful lot we are"
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The same video is being shared on WhatsApp and Facebook with the misleading claim.
FACT-CHECK
BOOM found that the viral video of a young boy spitting on flowers is from Pakistan. A vehicle number plate visible in the background also confirms the video is not from India.
Video of boy spitting on flowers previously viral on social media in Pakistan
We broke the video into key-frames and ran a reverse image search, the search results showed that the video was previously viral stating that it is from Pakistan. This can be seen in the caption below on the video uploaded on YouTube on September 1, 2024.
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Yellow color car number plate traces to Sindh, Pakistan
A car with the number plate AQV 503 can be seen in the background.
BOOM has previously fact-checked videos that have gone viral from Sindh, Pakistan as India, of similar yellow color number plates.
The number plate visible in the viral video is 'AQV 503' we found similar number plates used in Pakistan's Sindh region.
In March 2023, the Sindh government stopped issuing yellow number plates for vehicle registration. According to The Nation, the Sindh government had asked people to replace their yellow number plates with new ones following the state cabinet’s approval of advanced motor vehicle number plates with security features.
We also found similar yellow number plates in YouTube videos on the old number plates used in Sindh. This can be seen below: