On Tuesday Nepalese tourism officials said an investigation had determined the Rathods never reached the 8,850-metre peak.
Advertisement
Tourism Department official Gyanendra Shrestha said a government investigation had confirmed complaints by other climbers that the Indian couple had doctored photographs to show themselves at the top of the world’s highest mountain.
The head of the adventure company that organized the Rathods’ trip, meanwhile, insisted that their achievement was genuine and that there was “some politics going on” that prompted the ban. Nepal mountaineering authorities have determined that an Indian couple faked a Mount Everest ascent earlier this year by altering photographs to show they were on the summit.
He said “no one seemed to have seen the Rathods beyond the base camp”, and that they had not even “reached the first acclimatisation rotation before the main push to the summit – the Khumbu icefall – by May 10”.
Immediately after the press meet, Pune-based mountaineer Surendra Shelke approached the police and alleged that the couple’s story did not add up. “We have canceled the certificate and imposed a 10-year ban against them from climbing any mountain in Nepal”, said Sudarshan Prasad Dhakal, chief of the Tourism Department of Nepal.
Mountaineers were dubious in June, when Dinesh and Tarakeshwari Rathod said they had achieved a lifelong goal, becoming the first Indian couple to climb to the summit of Mount Everest. “The couple have tarnished the image not only of police force but of the whole country”, Pune police commissioner Rashmi Shukla was quoted as saying.
After two years of disasters, 454 people scaled the mountain during the busy March to May climbing season.
In June, Dinesh and Tarakeshwari Rathod lived out a lifelong dream and summited Mt. Everest.
Advertisement
Indian climbers banned from Nepal over fake Everest photos was posted in World of TheNews International – https://www.thenews.com.pk on August 31, 2016 and was last updated on August 31, 2016.
