KATMANDU: Nepal has imposed a 10-year mountaineering ban on an Indian couple who faked photographs purporting to show them at the top of Mount Everest, an official said Tuesday.
Dinesh and Tarakeshwari Rathod, both police constables, said they reached the top of the world’s highest mountain on May 23. But fellow climbers cast doubt on their claim, saying their photos at the summit were doctored.
Nepal’s tourism department initially certified their claim but later conducted an investigation.
“Our investigation shows that the couple faked their summit. We have imposed a 10-year ban against them from climbing any mountain in Nepal,” tourism department chief Sudarshan Prasad Dhakal told AFP of the decision made on Monday.
Dhakal said an analysis of the photos submitted by the couple showed they had superimposed themselves and their banners on photos taken by another Indian climber of his Everest summit.
“Despite several attempts to get clarifications from them, they did not cooperate with us during the investigation. The two Sherpas that assisted them are also absconding,” Dhakal said.
“The ban should serve as a warning for mountaineers to follow ethics,” he said.
Many of those who reach the top of the 8,848 meter (29,029 feet) mountain have gone on to make money or forge careers as motivational speakers and authors.
A total of 456 people, including more than 250 foreigners, summited Everest during the recently-ended spring season, after two consecutive years of deadly disasters that led to almost all attempts being abandoned.
Mountaineering is a major revenue-earner for the impoverished Himalayan nation. This year’s string of successful summits is expected to boost the industry, which was left reeling after an earthquake last year killed almost 9,000 people nationwide.
Hundreds fled Everest last year after an earthquake-triggered avalanche at base camp killed 18 people.
Only one climber reached the top in 2014 after an avalanche killed 16 Nepali guides that year.
Nepal bans Indian police couple for faking Everest climb
Nepal bans Indian police couple for faking Everest climb
Australian far-right senator censured over ‘inflammatory’ Muslim comments
- The motion called on the Senate to censure Hanson for her “inflammatory and divisive comments seeking to vilify Muslim Australians, which do not reflect the opinions of the Australian Senate or the Australian people”
SYDNEY: Australia’s Senate on Monday censured far-right lawmaker Pauline Hanson over “inflammatory and divisive” comments she made about Muslim people during a discussion about the possible return of Australian relatives of Daesh militants from Syria.
“They hate Westerners, and that’s what it’s all about. You say there’s great Muslims out there, well I’m sorry, how can you tell me there are good Muslims?” Hanson said in an interview with Sky News in February.
Penny Wong, leader of Australia’s center-left Labor government in the Senate, moved the censure motion against Hanson, who leads the anti-immigration One Nation party.
The motion called on the Senate to censure Hanson for her “inflammatory and divisive comments seeking to vilify Muslim Australians, which do not reflect the opinions of the Australian Senate or the Australian people.”
It passed with the support of the minor Greens party and two senators from the conservative Liberal party who crossed the floor. “This censure motion is about drawing a line and sending a message to the people of faith in this country and sending a message to children in this country that your leaders believe that condemning an entire religion is not acceptable,” Wong said. Hanson called the motion a “stunt” before storming out of the chamber.
A senator for Queensland, Hanson first rose to prominence in the 1990s because of her strident opposition to immigration from Asia and to
asylum seekers.
Recent opinion polling shows Hanson’s One Nation has overtaken the country’s conservative opposition coalition, with 28 percent of the primary vote amid rising support for anti-immigration policies.
