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
Former DIG Ramesh Kharel died after being hit by an electricity pole while he was on his way to CIAA.
Fact
Kharel is alive and he lodged a case at CIAA against NEA Managing Director Kul Man Ghising.
A video claiming that former Nepal Police Deputy Inspector General (DIG) Ramesh Kharel died of electric shock after being hit by an electricity pole while he was on his way to the office of the Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA) is going viral on TikTok.
The video went viral after Kharel lodged a corruption complaint against the Managing Director of the Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA), Kul Man Ghising, at the Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority.
TikTok user @prakashjhakri100 posted a video carrying a photo of former DIG Ramesh Kharel. Text superimposed on the video reads, “Very happy to hear the news that Ramesh Kharel died of electric shock after being hit by an electricity pole while he was heading to the office of the Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA).”
The video posted on August 15 has garnered 20.9k likes, 689 users have shared and 3846 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 viral video, Newschecker ran a search on Google using relevant keywords and found that retired DIG Ramesh Kharel has been working as a presenter of a programme named Janata Janadan published on the YouTube channel named ‘Space 4K Television ‘.
We found the latest video of ‘Janata Janardan’ program published on the YouTubhe channel. The video posted on August 19 discussed the possible charges against Kulman Ghising. On checking his X (formerly twitter) handle, we found that he has been regularly updating his posts on twitter.
Further, we found several articles (see here, here & here) regarding the corruption case lodged by Kharel at CIAA against Ghising. However, we didn’t find any reports regarding Kharel’s death.
We reached out to the phone number displayed on the screen of Space 4K Television. The phone was received by Baburam Bhusal, who identified himself as the director of Anti-Corruption Network and associate of Kharel in the network, told Newschecker that the viral claim is misleading.
Thus, our findings clearly showed that Ramesh Kharel is alive and actively updating his social media handle.
Conclusion
No, the viral video claiming that former Nepal Police DIG Ramesh Kharel has passed away after being hit by an electricity pole is misleading. He is alive.
Result: False
Sources
Ramesh Kharel / X (formerly Twitter)
Khabarhub, August 13, 2024
Nepal Press, August 13, 2024
Space 4K Television/YouTube, August 13, 2024
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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.
