The Nepal government has banned a couple from Pune for 10 years over alleged false claims that they scaled the Mount Everest on May 23. Dinesh and Tarkeshwari Rathod are serving constables with Pune Police. The Nepal authorities have also sent a letter regarding the decision to Pune Police.
Now, the couple would not be allowed to enter Nepal for a decade. "This means the probe ordered by the Nepal government has confirmed. The two had lied about scaling Everest. This is indeed shocking," Pune Police Commissioner Rashmi Shukla was quoted as saying by the Indian Express.
"The couple have tarnished the image not only of police force, but of the whole country," she added. The top cop has also said that "strong" action will be taken against the couple as per the norms.
Constables Dinesh and Tarkeshwari had held a press conference in Kathmandu on June 5 to announce that they were the first Indian couple to scale the highest peak in the world on May 23. The couple is posted at the Shivajinagar headquarters of Pune Police.
Dinesh and Tarkeshwari have gone into hiding since the state police launched an inquiry into the matter. Senior officials said that they might not be arrested, but could get demoted and have their annual increments stopped. They added that the couple has "already confirmed that they had done something wrong" by going missing after the probe was initiated.
A group of mountaineers had approached Pune Police following the couple's claims and alleged that they had faked their expedition and that their description of the summit didn't seem true following which the probe was launched.
"I had scaled Mount Everest along with another climber and two sherpas on May 21. They had copied the pictures into their pen drives. They might have shared the pictures with other climbers," software engineer Satyrup Siddhantha had said adding that he had shared the couple's pictures with other people as well as the sherpas at the base camp.
A mountaineer from Kolkata had also alleged that pictures of him scaling the Everest along with another climber on May 21 were misused by the couple.
