A video showing a group of young men in Bangladesh giving a haircut and shave to a homeless man, is being shared in India with a false and communal claim that a Hindu sadhu (ascetic) was forcibly converted to Islam.
BOOM found that the person being claimed to be a sadhu is a Muslim named Rezaul Kabir, who had been missing.
BOOM Bangladesh spoke to Kabir's elder brother, who confirmed that the video shows his brother, who had been missing for a long time and is currently undergoing treatment for mental health related ailments at a hospital in Dhaka.
In the one-minute-long video, volunteers wearing black t-shirts and gloves approach a homeless man. They are then seen restraining the man with force. They then proceed to shave his dreadlocks and beard, and pour water on him from a canister.
The video is being circulated with a Hindi caption that translates to, "In Bangladesh, Muslims have converted a sadhu into a Muslim by cutting off his dreadlocks..."
(Original Text in Hindi: बांग्लादेश मे मुस्लिमों द्वारा एक साधु की जटा, जुट को काटकर मुसलमान बना दिया हैं...)
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Fact Check
BOOM first broke the video into keyframes and found that a longer version had been uploaded on Instagram by a Bangladeshi user on November 7, 2024.
Click here to view the post and here for an archive.
In the longer version of the video, a volunteer made an appeal to help identify the homeless man.
Taking a cue, BOOM Bangladesh tracked down the video creator, Mahbub Sorkar, who posted the same video on his Facebook page on November 1.
Click here to view the post and here for an archive.
The video was previously posted on his YouTube channel on October 26, where volunteers can be seen reassuring the man that they will not harm him in any way.
BOOM Bangladesh then reached out to the video creator, Mahbub Sorkar, who debunked the communal claim and clarified that the person in the video is a Muslim.
"We arrange for helpless, destitute, and mentally ill people lying on the streets in bad conditions to be handed over to their families. We try to ensure that these people are reunited with their family members. We do this work regardless of religion," Sorkar told BOOM Bangladesh.
"We shot this video in Keraniganj area. The condition of the man seen in the video was very bad at the time. After cleaning him, we uploaded the video on Facebook to help find his family. Within a few days, we located his family and came to know that he is from a Muslim family. I strongly condemn the communal propaganda being spread with this video."
Additionally, BOOM Bangladesh reached out to Robiul Hasan, the elder brother of the man seen in the viral video. Hasan shared an identity document and earlier photos as proof of his brother, Rezaul Kabir, while identifying him in the viral video.
Hasan explained, "the man in the video is my younger brother, Rezaul Kabir. He had been missing for seven years due to mental health issues, and we couldn’t locate him. Recently, we learned he was in Keraniganj, Dhaka, but when we went there, we couldn’t find him."
"A few days later, we received news from Feni Hospital that my younger brother had been in an accident and was receiving treatment there. We went to Feni Hospital and brought him back to our home in Khulna Sadar, where we admitted him to a local hospital. Due to his serious condition, he was later transferred to Mirpur Dental Clinic in Dhaka, where he is currently undergoing treatment," Hasan added.
