Fact Check: Viral Video Misleading by Combining Separate Old Clips to Claim Secret Meeting Between Balen and Sanduk Ruit
कात्तिक ११, २०८२ १५:२५
Kathmandu: A video clip claiming to show Kathmandu Metropolitan City Mayor Balendra Shah, ophthalmologist Dr. Sanduk Ruit, and Hami Nepal founder Sudan Gurung has gone viral on social media. It has been claimed that Sanduk Ruit and Balen are under tension after the video of a secret meeting between them was leaked in the 1-minute-21-second clip.
Their real character is revealed in the video. However, when TechPana fact-checked the video, it was confirmed that it was made by combining three different videos and was sensationally circulated as a single one.
Claim
At 6:41 am on Sunday, a Facebook page named ‘Sudarshan Khabar’ posted a 1-minute-27-second clip saying, “Sanduk and Balen are in tension after a very serious and secret video was leaked.” In the video, Dr. Sanduk Ruit and Kathmandu Metropolitan City Mayor Balendra Shah are heard discussing health-related issues.
The video has received more than 248,000 views and over 3,000 likes as of this writing. It has been shared more than 1,300 times and commented on by 256 people. (See the post, archive link, and screenshot.)
Research
It is clear that the viral clip mainly includes footage from three different contexts. In the first, Dr. Sanduk Ruit and Mayor Balendra Shah are seen having coffee and discussing public health services. This clip is shown in the first 43 seconds of the viral video.
In the second clip, Dr. Ruit expresses happiness about being able to mentor Nepali youth, saying, “I feel happy to be a mentor to our Nepalese friends. I must have mentored hundreds, thousands of such youth. If they carry my mentorship for good purpose, I am…”
A minute later, a video of Sudan Gurung, the founder of Hami Nepal, appears in the third context, where Gurung says he received an office for his organization from Dr. Ruit. In the viral video, Gurung is heard saying, “The office has been given to us by Sanduk Ruit. We are in his office. ‘I will give you whatever you need. How do you have to work?’ So they are basically the fathers of Nepal; we are the children of Nepal. The parents of Nepal are the Barbara Foundation and Dr. Sanduk Ruit.”
In the clip, Gurung also says that he consults Dr. Ruit before doing anything. To find out the authenticity of the videos, we first took a screenshot from the clip of Sanduk and Balen talking and searched it on Google Reverse Image.
It was found that the 21-second video was shared by other social media users as well. On social media X, a user named ‘Ma Pani GenZ’ with the username ‘@joshiyogesh93’ shared the video at 12:39 pm on October 26. In the caption, he wrote, “Those who consider Balen and Dr. Ruit as Gods should see where Gods are operating from and what are they doing for the country??” (See the post, and screenshot.)
Facebook user ‘Mahesh Chaulagain’ also shared the video at 7:39 am on October 26 with the same claim. He wrote, “Those who burn sovereignty are now slowly becoming public. The veils of mystery are slowly opening. The day is coming when the Nepali people will slowly understand how celebrities are making the country. Now, a row is seen inciting violence against the Marwari community after Chhath and in the name of Hinduism, which is reaching a point where the investment of the Marwari community, which invests in industry and business in the country, has to be returned to India.” (See his post and screenshot.)
Another Facebook user ‘King is always king’ posted the same video on October 26 and wrote, “The mask of the child is slowly opening, it is not too late to say that this video was made by AI.” (See post and screenshot.)
The same claim was also made by a Facebook page called ‘We are proud to be Nepali.’ Click here to watch the video.
While searching like this, we also found the real source of the video. A video posted by ‘Rhythm Online TV’ was found about three years ago (January 22, 2023). The 12-minute report titled “Balen reached out to congratulate Dr. Sanduk Ruit. Such a discussion on the work and future plans of the metropolis. Exclusive” is included.
The report mentions that Ruit went to meet Balen after being honored with one million US dollars from the Isha Award in Bahrain. The video has been viewed more than 70 thousand times.
The video shows a discussion taking place in a room where six people are present except for the cameraperson. They discuss returning encroached government land, providing public health services through the metropolis, and future plans.
The clip from 3:21 to 3:25 of the video was found to be similar to the first 6 seconds of the viral video. However, the viral video has cropped various clips from the original video. Watch the video of Balen and Sanduk Ruit meeting posted by 'Rhythm Online TV':
To check whether Balen and Dr. Ruit met after receiving the Isha Award as claimed in the video, we compared the publication date of the video with news reports of Ruit receiving the award. On January 17, 2023, Kantipur published a news report that Dr. Ruit received an award worth 130 million rupees. The video of Balen and Ruit was made public five days after that report, confirming the context of the meeting.
Then we moved on to find out the authenticity of the second clip in the viral video. For that, we tried to find out when the video in which Dr. Ruit spoke about Hami Nepal was from. When we searched Google for ‘Sanduk Ruit Barbara Foundation Hami Nepal,’ various clips of Dr. Ruit’s press conference after the Gen-Z Movement were found. In that press conference, Dr. Ruit denied the allegations that the Barbara Foundation had provided funding to support Hami Nepal during the movement.
Dr. Ruit admitted that he had supported Hami Nepal by providing an office and said he was happy to play the role of a mentor. However, he clarified that Hami Nepal had been operating from a separate office for more than a year and that he had not been in touch since then. Therefore, he said that the Gen-Z Movement had not received any funding from the Barbara Foundation.
The video of the press conference was posted by various media outlets on their social media. The clip used in the viral video matched the one posted by ‘Nepal News Network’ on September 14. The clip is part of a 12-minute-and-5-second-long video titled “Barbara Foundation and Dr. Sanduk Ruit supporting Hami Nepal and the current Gen-Z movement.” Click here to go to 3 minutes and 26 seconds to watch the clip.
Then we searched for the third clip in the viral video, where Sudan Gurung says Hami Nepal received support from the Barbara Foundation. It was found that the clip is from an interview with Gurung conducted by Prime Television two and a half years ago.
The clip is from Gurung’s interview with host Biraj Shrestha on a program called Batch No. 5. The video was made public on Prime HD’s YouTube channel on February 10, 2023. In the interview, Gurung said that he was trying to save administrative expenses and use the money for support instead. From 24 minutes and 35 seconds of the video, he said that he received support from Dr. Sanduk Ruit for his office. The same clip went viral again after the Gen-Z movement. Watch the video.
After the clip went viral, Dr. Ruit held a press conference to clarify the matter.
Claim
Balen and Sanduk had a secret meeting.
Claimants
Social media users including ‘Sudarshan Khabar’, ‘Ma Pani GenZ’, and ‘Mahesh Chaulagain’.
Fact
An analysis of the viral video by TechPana revealed that it was made by combining scenes from three different times and contexts. The first clip is taken from a video uploaded by ‘Rhythm Online TV’ on January 22, 2023, in which Dr. Sanduk Ruit and Kathmandu Metropolitan City Mayor Balendra Shah are seen discussing public health and future plans. The meeting was in the context of Balen visiting Dr. Ruit to congratulate him after receiving the Isha Award from Bahrain.
The second part of the viral video is from a press conference organized by Dr. Ruit on September 14, 2025, uploaded by ‘Nepal News Network’. In it, Dr. Ruit acknowledges that he supported Hami Nepal as a mentor and provided an office but clarifies that there was no funding from the Barbara Foundation.
The third part of the video is taken from an interview broadcast by ‘Prime HD Television’ on February 10, 2023, where Hami Nepal founder Sudan Gurung says that Dr. Ruit had helped with office space. The video is 32 months old. Dr. Ruit has already made it clear through a press conference on September 14 that Hami Nepal has been operating from a separate office for more than a year.
Conclusion
The scenes shown in the viral video are not from a single secret meeting. The video combines clips from three separate videos shot at different times and in different contexts. The first clip is from January 2023, when Dr. Sanduk Ruit met Balen to congratulate him on the Isha Award. The second clip is from a press conference held by Dr. Ruit last September, where he clarified that Hami Nepal is not in contact with him at present. The third clip is part of an interview with Sudan Gurung broadcast on Prime Television in February 2023. It has been confirmed that these scenes were edited together without context and sensationally circulated online to make them appear as secret talks.
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पछिल्लो अध्यावधिक: कात्तिक ११, २०८२ १५:२५
