A video of a staged protest is being shared online with a false communal claim that it shows Bangladeshi Islamists chopping off hair of students who do not wear traditional clothes or keep a beard.
In the 32 seconds long video, two people hold a man as one forcibly chops off his hair.
BOOM found that the video shows a symbolic protest in Bangladesh in response to the forcible haircutting of an elderly fakir that took place in the country's Mymensingh district a few days before Eid-ul-Azha this year.
The video is being shared against the backdrop of recent unrest in the country triggered by the shooting of Bangladesh student leader Sharif Osman Hadi, and lynching of a Hindu man in Mymensingh, Bangladesh.
The Claim
Several users, including right-wing X handles, shared the video with the caption, “Bangladeshi Islamists chopped the hair of students who wear western clothes & don't keep a beard." (sic)
Click here and here to view the posts.
What We Found: Video From Symbolic Protest
1. News Reports About The Incident: We first ran a keyword search related to the video and came across a report by Bangladeshi news outlet Prothom Alo about the incident. The report, published on September 26, 2025, carried an image of the staged protest.
The report stated that the incident was a symbolic protest by cultural activists in Bangladesh. They cut the hair of poet Shamim Ashraf, president of Porompora, an organisation that arranged a programme commemorating legendary singer Farida Parveen in Mymensingh on the same day. It further added that the symbolic hair-cutting was carried out in response to a widely circulated social media video showing Halim Uddin Akand, locally known as Halim Fakir from Tarakanda, being forcibly shorn by several individuals.
Several news outlets from Bangladesh, including Prothom Alo and Kaler Kantho, also published video reports about the incident featuring bytes from Ashraf.
2. What Happened With Halim Fakir: According to reports by Bangladeshi news outlets, Halim Uddin Akand, a 70-year-old fakir and devotee of Hazrat Shahjalal (RA) and Hazrat Shah Paran (RA), as well as a follower of the Naqshbandi order, was chased by a few people, pinned down, and had his hair forcibly shaved in Tarakanda, Mymensingh. The Daily Star quoted an eyewitness who stated that the perpetrators came to Kashiganj Bazar from Dhaka after receiving a tip that "a madman was roaming the market," and they ignored locals who tried to intervene.
Bdnews24.com later reported that the victim’s son, Mohammad Shahid Akand, lodged a case on September 27, 2025, that includes the names of several individuals from the organisation Human Service Bangladesh and some local associates, quoting Tarakanda Police chief Mohammad Tipu Sultan. BBC News Bangla also published a video report about the incident at that time.
