One-eyed Alif’s video falsely shared as staged blindness

A video has been circulating on Facebook with the claim that a purported “July warrior” was caught pretending to be blind. However, a Dismislab fact-check found that the person in the video is Alif Chowdhury, coordinator of the Jatiya Chhatra Shakti in Nabiganj upazila. He lost vision in his left eye in a clash in Habiganj during the National Citizen Party’s (NCP) “July March” program. He is not completely blind and has some vision in his other eye.

On September 13, a 7-second video was posted from a Facebook page named “WMR News” with the caption, “The alleged July warrior was caught pretending to be blind.” The video shows a man wearing dark glasses going to sit between NCP leaders Nasiruddin Patwary and Sarjis Alam with the help of another person. After sitting down, he bends over and picks up a bottle of water. One commenter wrote, “So how did the blind guy see the water bottle?” (verbatim). Until the publication of this report, the video had been viewed 75,000 times and shared more than 250 times.

The video was also found posted from multiple Facebook profiles and pages (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6).

Using keyframes from the video, Dismislab found a video published on the Jugantor YouTube channel. Published on September 12, the video was titled, “Alif, who lost his eye, at Chhatra Shakti council.” The video shows Alif wearing dark glasses and sitting beside NCP leader Nasiruddin Patwary. The clothing of the two people and the surrounding scenes in the video match those in the circulated footage.

Dismislab conducted a search using relevant keywords to learn about Alif Chowdhury’s physical condition. The search found a report published by Samakal on July 31. The report, titled “NCP leaders and activists attacked, no possibility of restoring vision in Alif’s injured eye,” said that Alif Chowdhury, coordinator of the National Chhatra Shakti in Nabiganj upazila, lost vision in his injured eye after being attacked during an NCP program in Habiganj. However, according to doctors cited in the report, Alif’s other eye is in good condition.

A report published by Kalbela on September 14 sought Alif Chowdhury’s statement on the matter. He told Kalbela that his left eye had been permanently damaged and that he also had difficulty seeing distant objects with his injured right eye.

In other words, Alif Chowdhury, who has lost vision in one eye but can still see with the other, is being circulated with the false claim that he is pretending to be blind.