Pakistan's being shortchanged by the Rs5 Cocomo pack and Twitter's holding Miftah Ismail accountable

The Pakistani people have had enough and are calling for drastic change. Ex-finance minister Miftah Ismail is at the centre of this new saga, and the public want to make sure he's held accountable. They're not talking about politics though, there's something far more important weighing on their minds — Cocomo.

Singer and comedian Ali Gul Pir also made an appeal to Ismail directly.

"We want our demands met," proclaimed the Waderai ka Beta singer, and as his followers cheered on, he continued, "We want 5 Cocomos in every pack!"

Pir's contribution comes as part of an increasingly louder internet movement calling for justice for Cocomo consumers. The complaint is that the manufacturer, Bisconni, owned by Ismail Industries, is not giving enough biscuits in their Rs5 pack. From a time when there were six little ellipsoids per pack in its golden days, an increasing number of loyalists today report barely three in a pack.

The controversy began when lawyer Reema Omer reported finding just three units in her pack of Cocomo. She took to social media to complain about the injustice, only to find out that others shared her struggle.

She was reminded of an interview Ismail — whose family business produces the much revered biscuits — gave to The Current in which he spoke about the controversy. The user said Ismail said a pack is supposed to have five pieces of Cocomo, and that three is an injustice. Omer, shocked by the revelation, took out her scissors and cut open another pack, only for four biscuits to drop out. "Lies!" she called.

The reminder also needed an update.

But when Omer opened a third pack, only for three Cocomos to roll out, with some crumbs, we heard the sound of her heart breaking from thousands of miles away.

The complaints didn't stop there, as more people jumped onto the bandwagon, and voiced their ballooning concerns regarding Cocomo. Empty, hollow Cocomo, for example.

"What did it say in your form 45!?" inquired distraught Hasan Zaidi.

This person has a foolproof way to check that they're getting their money's worth.

This woman has a poem for us to chant.

And Meesha Shafi has a hashtag suggestion that we can get behind.

In an interview with The Current, PML-N's Ismail was asked why a pack of Cocomo only has three biscuits by a deeply concerned interviewer. The concern was, of course, prompted by this matter of national importance.

"I can assure you a packet has four," said the businessman-politician. He claimed he had told his nephew, who we suppose takes care of that part of the business, that there should be five, but the nephew shot this down under the pretext of it not being feasible.

"If you've gotten three, then that's probably just bad luck because the counting is done by a machine," he said.

Every time the interviewer said there were three biscuits in a pack, Ismail corrected her and said there were four.

Why is this being done to us? Surprise, surprise, the PML-N politician laid the blame for this national tragedy at the door of the PTI government.

"The blame somewhat falls on Usman Buzdar. How he let our wheat get smuggled to Afghanistan and Central Asia, and Imran Khan consequently doubling the price of wheat, has lead to my production cost doubling up. The cost of oil and sugar doubled," he lamented commodity prices, insisting, in ways, that Cocomo is a legitimate economic indicator.

"Cocomo's price should've also then doubled to Rs10, but we've kept it at Rs 5, though bringing down the number of biscuits from five to four."

Here's an excerpt from the interview.

And here's a tweet that we wholeheartedly agree with:

How many Cocomos do you, on average, find in your pack? Let's test Ismail's claim.