A video is viral on social media in which a group of people are seen forcibly grabbing an old man from the street and cutting off his dreadlocks. This video is being shared with the claim that a Hindu monk in Bangladesh was converted to Islam and his dreadlocks were forcibly cut off.
X User Chandan Sharma, who is often found spreading misinformation, tweeted the video and claimed that a monk in Bangladesh was forcibly converted to Islam with his dreadlocks forcibly removed. (Archived link)
A user named Navin Kumar also posted the viral video on Instagram and made the same claim.
Alt News also received a request to fact-check this video on our WhatsApp helpline (7600011160).
Fact Check
We noted that Bangladeshi fact-checker Shohanur Rahman had replied to a tweet containing the viral video, saying, "This person was a homeless man who was provided sanitation and rehabilitation assistance by an organisation as part of their humanitarian effort." Along with this, he has also shared the link of a Facebook page named 'Mahbub creation'.
When we examined this Facebook page, we found that the viral video was posted on this page on November 5. Its caption reads 'Bhinna prakriti ekjon manush' in Bangla, meaning a man with a different nature.
Alt News found a statement posted on this page on December 9 by its admin Mahbub Afridi. In this video, he states that some people in India were spreading the misinformation that he had converted a Hindu monk to Islam, whereas in reality it was not the case. He clarified that he helped people living on the streets without discriminating on the basis of religion.
We also came across the full-length video from which the viral clip was uploaded on October 28, 2024 on a YouTube channel named Street Humanity of Bangladesh run by Mahbub Afridi. In this video it can be seen that his team cut the hair of the elderly man, bathed him and also dressed him in clean clothes. There are many videos on this YouTube channel in which he is seen helping the homeless and in many of these, his team has given haircuts to the mentally challenged and street dwellers and provided them with clothes.
To sum up, many social media users falsely shared the video of a content creator helping a homeless person in Bangladesh as a Hindu monk being forcibly converted to Islam by having his his dreadlocks cut off.
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Hello, my name is Ankit Sahu. I'm a 25 year old self-employed Pirate from the Chhindwara.