Sanjeeb Phuyal is the Nepali Editor of Newschecker based in Kathmandu, Nepal. He brings over a decade of experience writing and editing news. In his previous stint, he worked as online editor for The Kathmandu Post. With the growth of social media platforms—and the ever-growing competition amongst media outlets to churn out breaking news, he feels that fact-checking every piece of information has become essential today than ever before.
Claim
Rastriya Prajatantra Party Lawmaker Gyanendra Shahi beaten in Chitwan
Fact
Old video of Shahi being brought to Kathmandu from Chitwan
A video claiming that Rastriya Prajatantra Party (RPP) member of parliament (MP) Gyanendra Shahi has been brutally assaulted while conducting a public programme in Chitwan has been going viral on TikTok. Newscheker found the claim to be misleading.
TikTok user @vknepalofficial posted a video showing an ambulance arriving at Kathmandu Airport with text superimposed on it reading, “Breaking News: Gyanendra Shahi of Rastriya Prajatantra Party has been badly beaten.” Audio presented in a live reporting style says, “Gyanendra Shahi is brought here in an ambulance, and he was beaten black and blue. It has been understood that he was attacked with an iron rod and glasses and he is badly injured. We can see the van carrying him [Shahi] arriving.” The video caption reads, “Gyanendra Shahi has been badly assaulted.” The archived version of the TikTok video can be seen here.
The video posted on April 19 has garnered 19.4k likes, 145 users have shared it and 695 people commented until the last count.
Fact Check /Verification
To check the authenticity of the claim made in the viral video, Newschecker took several keyframes from the video and conducted reverse image searches on them. However, the search didn’t yield any relevant results.
Then we closely observed the video and noticed a logo of Intro Nepal on the top right corner of the video. Taking it as a clue, we conducted a search on YouTube that led us to a channel named Intro Nepal. So, we searched the channel by using relevant keywords and found a video report, whose frame and audio exactly matched the viral video, from 39-second. The news video published on September 28, 2019, showed the moment at Kathmandu airport’s domestic terminal when Gyanendra Shahi was flown to Kathmandu for treatment after he was badly injured in the Chitwan.
Further, we looked for news reports regarding the assault on Gyanendra Shahi and found several reports regarding the incident published on several media outlets on September 29, 2019.
An article on Kathmandu Post online reported that social activist Gyanendra Shahi was manhandled in Chitwan, where he was scheduled to address a function organised by a group called ‘Nepal Ka Lagi Nepali’.
Our findings revealed that the viral footage was from 2019 when Shahi was only a social activist and anti-corruption crusader and had not joined any political party.
He joined the Rastriya Prajatantra Party only in February 2022. Shahi won the November 20 elections as a member of the federal House of Representatives from Jumla.
Conclusion
The viral video claiming that Rastriya Prajatantra Party lawmaker Gyanendra Shahi was assaulted in Chitwan is misleading as the viral video shows a news clip from 2019 when Shahi was only a social activist and anti-corruption crusader.
Result: Missing Context
Sources
Intro Nepal /YouTube, 28 September 2019
The Kathmandu Post, 29 September 2019
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Sanjeeb Phuyal is the Nepali Editor of Newschecker based in Kathmandu, Nepal. He brings over a decade of experience writing and editing news. In his previous stint, he worked as online editor for The Kathmandu Post. With the growth of social media platforms—and the ever-growing competition amongst media outlets to churn out breaking news, he feels that fact-checking every piece of information has become essential today than ever before.
