Students block a road during a protest to demand road safety in Dhaka on November 25, 2021, a day after the death of a high school student in a road accident. ( AFP)

Posts mislead on identity of student in Bangladesh road safety movement

This article is more than one year old.
Published on December 13, 2021 at 10:01
2 min read
By AFP Bangladesh

Two images of a Bengali woman have been shared hundreds of times on Facebook alongside a claim she is "not a student" yet has "infiltrated" a road safety campaign staged by students in Bangladesh. The claim is misleading; the woman seen in the photo supplied documentation to AFP which proves she is a student. The principal of her college also confirmed she is a student there.

The images were posted here on Facebook on December 3, 2021.

Screenshot of the misleading post taken on December 8, 2021

The post's Bengali-language caption translates as: "She is not a school student!"

"Socialist Party Dhaka City Office Secretary Shohagi Samia.."

"Ordinary school students have stopped the movement but she is taking to the streets wearing school uniforms to provoke the students.

"The Student Front is a perfect example of how foreign agents are fooling people by pretending to be ordinary students."

The Socialist Students' Front (SSF) is the student wing of the Socialist Party of Bangladesh (Khalequzzaman).

Thousands of college students in Bangladesh staged protests over the death of a student in a road accident on November 24, 2021 in Dhaka, as AFP reported here.

A similar claim was shared here and here on Facebook.

However, the claim is misleading.

After the posts circulated online, Shohagi Samia provided AFP with copies of her student ID card and secondary school exam registration card.

She also confirmed she is employed as the office secretary of The Socialist Students' Front (SSF) Dhaka city unit.

"I am a student and an HSC examinee from Khilgaon Model College this year. They are trying to mislead people about the road safety movement by spreading false claims about my studentship. But it's true that I am connected to The Socialist Students' Front and I don’t see any problem here", she told AFP.

Samia also presented her student ID and other academic documents to reporters in Dhaka during a briefing on the road safety movement on December 4, 2021. Bangladeshi news outlets including Bdnews24.com reported on the meeting here.

The acting Principal of Khilgaon Model College in Dhaka also confirmed Samia was a student at the college to AFP.

He said: "Yes, Shohagi is a student of ours and she is going to appear at the coming HSC (Higher Secondary School Certificate) exam this year."

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