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
Prime Minister and CPN (Maoist Centre) Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal has resigned, and has been arrested and jailed
Fact
The Apex court is scheduled to conduct hearings on the petitions against Dahal today
Even as the Supreme Court is scheduled to hear two petitions against Prime Minister Pushpa Kumar Dahal Prachanda for insurgency-era related deaths, many videos with unverified and false claims are going viral. Those sharing such videos on TikTok claim that Prime Minister and Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist Centre) Pushpa Kamal Dahal, better known by his nom de guerre Prachanda, has submitted his resignation to the president after the court ordered to arrest him, and that he has been arrested and jailed. Newschecker found the claims made by two videos to be false.
TikTok user @rubeshyadav3 posted a video showing an image of Pushpa Kamal Dahal behind bars. Text superimposed on the video reads, “Fresh update! Prachanda has been arrested and jailed.” Audio accompanying the video is heard saying, “Please don’t cry. This was our fate.” The archived version of the TikTok video can be seen here.
The video posted on March 6 has garnered 19.2k likes, 559 users have shared it and 1178 people have commented on it until the last count.
The same TikTok user posted a video showing images of Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal. Text superimposed on the video reads, “Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal has just handed over his resignation to the president after the court ordered to arrest him. Oli [Communist Party of Nepal-Unified Marxist Leninist (CPN-UML) Chairman KP Sharma] has become the new Prime Minister.” The archived version of the TikTok video can be seen here.
The video posted on March 7 has garnered 8604 likes, 130 users have shared it and 503 people have commented on it until the time of publishing this article.
Why the writ petitions against Dahal?
The Supreme Court on March 3 ordered to allow writ petitions seeking criminal investigation against Prime Minister and CPN (Maoist Centre) chair Pushpa Kamal for his statement that he would take responsibility for the killings of 5,000 of the 17,000 people who lost lives during the decade-long Maoist insurgency.
While addressing an event in Kathmandu on January 15, 2020, Dahal had said that he would take the responsibility for the deaths of 5,000 people if the state is ready to take responsibility for the remaining 12000 deaths.
Following the court order, two writ petitions have been filed against CPN (Maoist Centre) chair and prime minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal at the Supreme Court in an insurgency-related case.
Fact Check /Verification
To check the authenticity of the claim made in the viral video, Newschecker checked the status of the petitions and found that the apex court is scheduled to conduct hearings on the cases today.
We checked for the latest news regarding the writ against Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal and found an article published on The Kathmandu Post online. The article reported that the writ against Dahal is assigned to the bench of justice Biswombhar Prasad Shrestha.
We also found another news article published on Online Khabar.com which confirmed that the case registered against Dahal has been scheduled for the fourth slot on Thursday.
Advocates Gyanendra Aran and Kalyan Budhathoki had filed the petitions on Tuesday seeking criminal investigation against Dahal over insurgency-era atrocities
Our investigations show that the court has not issued any order on the writ petitions against Prime Pushpa Kamal Dahal until the time of publishing this article.
Conclusion
Viral videos claiming that Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal has turned in his resignation and he has been arrested and jailed after the court ordered his arrest.
Result: False
The Himalayan Times, 7 March, 2023
The Kathmandu Post, 9 March, 2023
Onlinekhabar.com, 9 March, 2023
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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.
