Popular Tamil YouTuber Irfan, known for his channel “Irfan’s View,” has landed in hot water after he posted videos revealing the gender of his unborn child. This revelation has sparked controversy due to the illegal nature of gender disclosure in India under the Pre-Conception & Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques Act, 1994.
Irfan and his spouse Aaliya traveled to Dubai, where prenatal sex determination is legal, to undergo the test. In the first video, posted on May 18, Aaliya is shown undergoing the test at a Dubai hospital. Irfan acknowledged the illegality of such tests in India, explaining that while sex determination was once common, it was banned due to widespread gender discrimination.
The videos have drawn condemnation from the Health and Family Welfare Department, which issued a notice to Irfan. The department has also requested the Cyber Crime Wing of Tamil Nadu to have the videos removed from YouTube.
The controversial video shows the couple at the Dubai hospital, where Irfan reflects on the practice of sex determination in India, stating, āWhen I was born in 1993, my mother knew my gender. It was not a big issue then. It was stopped because many mad people were discriminating against the female gender.ā
In a subsequent video posted on May 20, Irfan and his wife hosted a gender reveal party in Chennai, attended by relatives and several television personalities. The guests participated in guessing the gender by wearing pink or blue, and eventually, it was revealed that the unborn child is a girl. Following significant backlash, the video, which had garnered over two million views, was made private.
Irfan, who rose to fame through his food reviews and travel vlogs, boasts a substantial following of 4.29 million subscribers on his YouTube channel.