Video from Iran shared as man enraged over rising petrol prices sets pump on fire

A video viral on social media shows a man sprinkling petrol at a fuel dispenser in a petrol pump and setting it ablaze. It has been claimed that the man was enraged with rising petrol prices in the country. Facebook user AH Khan claimed that the incident is from Haryana.

It is noteworthy that petrol and diesel prices have been at a record high in recent times, mainly due to increased government taxes. The price has crossed Rs 100 per litre in several states.

The video is quite widespread on Facebook.

YouTube channel ‘The Hind Warrior’ amplified the video with the identical claim.

Video from Iran

A reverse image search of the keyframes of the video led us to the Persian website ‘aparat.com’. While the website did not provide any details of the incident. the video could be from countries where Persian is spoken like Iran and Afghanistan.

When we reverse-searched the video’s keyframes with relevant keywords, we were directed to an article on Young Journalists Club dated June 16, 2021. This is a Persian news agency. The article said that the man had set fire to a petrol pump in the Iranian city of Rafsanjan. The motive behind the crime was a personal dispute. The accused had enmity with one of the workers of the pump. The article claims that Rafsangen police head Colonel Ereman said the incident occurred on the morning of June 10.

The petrol company’s logo can be seen on the fuel dispenser in the video. We compared this with publicly available images of petrol pumps in Rafsanjan. The logo is the same.

The video was earlier fact-checked by Boomlive and The Quint.

Thus, an incident of arson in Iran was falsely shared as a man setting a petrol pump on fire in India because he was enraged due to rising petrol prices.