RPP Lawmaker Gyanendra Shahi Assaulted In Japan? No, Viral Clip Is From 2019

A video showing Rastriya Prajatantra Party (RPP) Gyan Bahadur Shahi wearing neck support and bandage on his head allegedly after he was assaulted while he was having a meal in Japan is going viral on TikTok.

Shahi had recently visited Japan to attend an event organised by Nepali diaspora.

Against this backdrop, TikTok user @nepalkomaya2277 posted a video with two screens stitched together. One screen shows RPP lawmaker Gyanendra Shahi having a meal at a restaurant while a waiter serves food. Another video shows Shahi wearing neck support and bandage on his head being carried in a wheel chair.  In the background audio, a person asks, “Gyanendra Dai can you speak,” The people accompanying him say that he can’t speak now. Text superimposed on the video reads, “Gyanendra Shahi attacked while eating his meal in Japan.”

The video posted on July 20 has garnered 5888 likes, 278 users have shared it and 127 people have commented until the last count.

Fact Check /Verification

To check the veracity, we began by searching for news reports about the assault on Gyanendra Shah in Japan by using relevant keywords. However, the search didn’t yield any credible results.  

We then took several key-frame showing badly injured MP Gyanendra Shahi wearing neck support and bandage and ran reverse searches on them.

A reverse search led us to a video, dated Oct 2, 2019, posted on the YouTube channel named Mr Naresh Dhami. On checking the video, we found that the video resembled the viral clip showing injured Gyanendra Shahi being carried in a wheel-chair, while the background audio from 6:27-minute onwards exactly matched the audio carried in the viral video.

Further, we found another video, dated October 22, 2019, posted on the YouTube channel named Intro Nepal. We found that the video clip from 3:02-minute exactly matched the clip carried in the viral video.

We also found another video, dated October 2, 2019, posted on the YouTube channel named Mero Online TV resembling the viral clip. We found that the video clip and the audio from 2:47-minute exactly matched the viral clip.

We also found a news report, dated September 28, 2019, posted on Kathmandu Post online about the assault on anti-corruption campaigner Gyanendra Shahi in Chitwan.  Shahi was a social and anti-corruption campaigner before he joined politics.

Thus, our findings clearly showed that the purported clip showing injured RPP lawmaker Gyanendra Shahi in a wheelchair carried in the viral video is actually from September 2019.

Conclusion

No, RPP lawmaker Gyanendra Shahi was not attacked in Japan. The viral clip showing him wearing neck support and bandage is old. Thus, the viral video claiming that Gyanendra Shahi was assaulted in Japan is misleading.

Result: Misleading  

Sources
Mr Naresh Dhami /YouTube Oct 2, 2019
Intro Nepal, Oct 2, 2019
Mero Online TV /YouTube Oct  2, 2019
Kathmandu Post, September 29, 2019