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 more essential today than ever before.
Claim
Businessman Durga Prasain Arrested from airport at Home Minister’s order.
Fact
No, viral video shows Prasain responding to the media upon his arrival at Kathmandu Airport.
A video claiming that businessman Durga Prasain has been arrested at the directive of Home Minister Rabi Lamichhane is going viral on TikTok.
Praisain, who was a central committee member of the CPN-UML, has recently been campaigning for the restoration of monarchy in the country. A permanent resident of Birtamod in Jhapa district is known as the director of B & C Medical College. He has also been campaigning against the banking and financial institutions.
Against this backdrop, TikTok user @spandan.binod_official posted a video showing a crowd of people carrying Nepal’s national flag chanting a slogan in favour of Durga Prasain. The video shows Prasain walking out of the airport. He is surrounded by the mediapersons and his supporters. When asked why he came to Kathmandu from Jhapa, Prasain says, “A few smugglers met the newly appointed Finance Minister and told him to arrest me.” Text superimposed on the video reads, “First success of the new Home Minister. Durga Prasain was arrested from the airport after direct order from the Home Minister Rabi Lamichhane.”
The video posted on March 10 has garnered 17k likes, 17 users have shared it and 571 people have commented until the time of publishing this article. The archived version of the TikTok video can be seen here.
Newschecker found the claim to be misleading.
Fact Check /Verification
To check the authenticity of the claim made in the video, Newschecker split the video into several key frames and conducted reverse searches on them. However, the results didn’t match the viral video.
We, then, conducted a search on YouTube by using relevant keywords and found a video, dated March 10, 2024, published by a YouTube account named ‘Achut Puri’. On checking the 10.59-minute video, we found that the video frame from the beginning to 0.15-minute exactly matched the viral video.
Further, we searched for other videos showing Durga Prasain arriving at Kathmandu Airport and found a video, dated March 10, published on a YouTube channel named Sutra TV. The video matched the clothes worn by Prasain and his surroundings, we found that the video showed Prasain responding to the media upon his arrival from Jhapa after the formation of a new coalition government. In the interview, Prasain says, “If Rabi Lamichhane [the newly appointed Home Minister] really wants to take action, he should dare to take action against the banks, microfinance, and finance cooperatives who have fleeced the people.”
We reached out to Nepal Police Spokesperson Bhim Prasad Dhakal, who said the news of businessman Prasain is false.
Thus, our findings showed that businessman Prasain has not been arrested.
Conclusion
The viral video claiming that Durga Prasain has been arrested is misleading. The video actually shows Prasain responding to the media after his recent arrival to Kathmandu from Jhapa.
Result: False
Sources
Achut Puri/YouTube March 10, 2024
Sutra TV/YouTube March 10, 2024
Direct Contact with Nepal Police Spokesperson Bhim Prasad Dhakal
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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 more essential today than ever before.
