PESHAWAR: Social media users in Pakistan have been sharing claims that police have conducted raids on several restaurants in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, alleging that they were serving dog meat to customers.
Photographs circulated widely on Facebook suggest that officials have seized dog meat from eateries in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. A Facebook user posted, “The police in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa have raided several restaurants” on September 15, adding, “Various types of meat, raw and cooked, were found at these places.” The user also claimed that the hotel owner had admitted to serving this meat for the past five years.
This post received over 6,600 shares and 256 likes at the time of writing. A similar post shared by another Facebook user was also shared over 1,000 times.
Fact:
The food department in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa officials have confirmed that the claim of dog meat being seized from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa restaurants is entirely baseless. Khan Ghalib, the additional director of communication, referred to the allegations as “fake news.” He explained, “People make these pictures viral every year. This is totally fake, and there is no truth to it.” Ghalib clarified that eateries are inspected by the food department, not the police.
Muhammad Imran Khan, the director general of information and public relations at the directorate general information office in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, also dismissed these claims. He stated that the pictures had been circulating for the last two years, and he confirmed with the food department that no dog meat had been seized.
To further investigate, Fact Check contacted Ghulam Rasool Shah, the director of operations at the Sindh Food Authority in Hyderabad. He mentioned that similar claims had been made about a local shop three years ago, but when the food authority inspected the restaurant, they found no dog meat.
Additionally, a reverse image search revealed that the pictures being circulated alongside these false claims had also been shared online back in 2018. However, it was not possible to establish where or when the pictures were taken.
