Claim: A man in Faisalabad took his clothes off to protest the increasing prices of electricity across the country.
Fact: The photos are from 2017. News reports from that time did not link the man’s action to rising electricity prices.
On 5 July 2024, Dr Shahbaz Gill — an aide to former prime minister and founder of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), Imran Khan — posted (archive) a Facebook reel about an incident where a man in Faisalabad, a city in the Punjab province, allegedly stripped naked to protest the rising electricity prices in the country.
The video includes pictures of the man taking his clothes off and parading before the bystanders on the street. Gill says that while people laughed at the individual, he did not have any other choice as he could not pay his electricity bill.
The accompanying caption reads as follows:
“بجلی بل کی وجہ سے رکشہ ڈرائیور کا ننگا احتجاج
[Naked protest by rickshaw driver due to electricity bills]”
Pakistan’s power woes
The video comes as Pakistanis worry about the hikes in electricity prices, making many unable to afford basic amenities of life, with multiple reports of people also resorting to suicide. Protests have erupted across the country and a former federal minister recently hinted at approaching the courts over “sky-high electricity tariff [and] overbilling”.
Pakistan finds itself in a turbulent phase as it remains extremely short of cash and has requested China to restructure some of its power-plant debt. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is set to provide yet another bailout package to the country after negotiations, but the global lender has demanded the government to stop providing subsidies to the energy sector.
Fact or Fiction?
Soch Fact Check ran a reverse image search and found that the photos appeared online as early as 2017.
We came across two reports published here (archive) and here (archive) by Pakistani and Kenyan media outlets on 25 and 26 December 2017.
Daily Pakistan reported that the man, a troubled motorist, taught “Pakistanis how to stop protests with this one weird trick” by taking his clothes off in a bid to force demonstrators to clear a main road. The incident took place at the City Council Chowk, it said.
On the other hand, Venas News, the Kenyan outlet, reported that it was an Indian man, a father of three, who stripped “after his wife dumped him for a witch doctor”.
“Mr Patel is married with 3 children. His marriage has been rosy until last week when the wife decided to dump him for a witch doctor,” it wrote, adding that his spouse was “secretly visiting the witch doctor” and told him that the “witchdoctor is sweeter than him”.
“Mr Patel was unable to control his emotions, he stripped naked and made noise in front of a crowd. Here is how it happened,” the Kenyan news website wrote.
It remains unclear whether the man was actually Pakistani or Indian but Soch Fact Check ascertained that the pictures are from 2017 — predating the current concerns over electricity charges — and do not show a man protesting the hikes in power prices.
Virality
Soch Fact Check conducted a CrowdTangle analysis for the 30-day period from 2 July 2024 to 1 August using the search term “بجلی رکشہ ڈرائیور ننگا احتجاج” and found over 16,100 interactions across more than 430 Facebook posts.
Users posted the pictures as Facebook reels, videos, and even a 3D photo here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.
The claim was also shared here and here on Threads, here and here on Instagram, here and here on TikTok, and here and here on X (formerly Twitter).
Some websites — here, here, and here — also reported on the incident as authentic news.
Conclusion: The photos are from 2017. News reports from that time did not link the man’s action to rising electricity prices in Pakistan.
Background image in cover photo: Nikola Johnny Mirkovic
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