AFP fact-check: Petrol prices are not being reduced to Rs20 per litre

Claim is false, breaking news alert was taken from an old April Fools prank

PAKISTAN: Multiple Facebook pages with millions of followers between them have shared a purported breaking news alert which claims that the government has cut petrol prices to Rs20 per litre.

The claim is false, the breaking news alert was taken from an old April Fools prank, and the oil regulatory body said no such price cut has been announced.

The misleading Facebook post, shared by accounts millions of followers, has a caption saying: “Breaking news: Government has reduced the petrol price to Rs20 per litre for Pakistanis. How long is this offer valid? Watch the video.”





The screenshot of the news bulletin had been taken from a 2018 April fools joke, in which a private channel's presenters reported that petrol prices have been slashed to Rs20 per litre, electricity blackouts have ended, and street crime has been totally eliminated in Pakistan.

At the end of the clip, the female presenter says: "Stop, stop you have given so much good news, I wish that all this news was true. Every Pakistani wants this. But today is April Fools Day. Before accepting this kind of news please verify it so that nobody can make a fool of you."

The morning-after saw transporters increasing their fares unilaterally, without any announcement and without approval from Regional Transport Authority (RTA).



The fake news report was widely published in Pakistan on April 1, 2018.

A reverse image search found the photograph in the misleading Facebook posts purportedly showing people celebrating in the streets after fuel prices were cut was actually taken in Islamabad on June 21, 2009, by the Associated Press news agency. The image shows cricket fans reacting as the Pakistani national team beat Sri Lanka.



Here is a BBC story about the cricket victory which uses the AP photo.

AFP also took photographs of the same people celebrating the cricket victory in the streets of Islamabad. In the AFP photograph, the same man in a checked shirt can be seen in the centre of the image, with the same shop signs and lampposts clearly visible in the background.



 

“This is fake news. Petrol price was never Rs20 per litre for the past many decades,” Pakistan Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (OGRA) spokesman Imran Ghaznavi told AFP.