A video showing former Gurkha Rifles soldiers and their families singing India’s national anthem and saluting the Indian flag has been falsely claimed to be from Pokhara, Nepal. Nepal Check found that the video was filmed in Sukhiapokhri, a town in India’s Darjeeling district.
On August 17, 2026, the X account @gorockgo_100, which regularly posts content about the Indian Army, shared the nearly two-minute video. Its caption claimed: “This is at Pokhara Nepal by veterans of Gurkha Rifles. Veterans with families are singing the national anthem of India, despite being citizens of a sovereign country.”
A screenshot of the viral video on Instagram
The post praised the participants’ “respect” for the Indian flag and ended with “Jai Hind.” The video was subsequently shared on Instagram and LinkedIn with the same claim.
Indian news outlets also amplified the claim. Navbharat Times claimed the video showed Gurkha veterans singing India’s national anthem and unfurling the Indian flag.
Fact check
Nepal Check extracted screenshots from the viral video and conducted reverse-image and keyword searches. We could not locate its original video. However, we found another recording of the same event on a Facebook page by Rinzing Namgyal Bhutia.
Bhutia’s video was filmed from a different angle and showed the gathering in greater detail. A frame-by-frame comparison revealed several people appearing in both videos. Their clothing, positions within the gathering and physical features matched. The positions of the participants and other surroundings were also consistent across the two videos.
Screenshot comparison between video on Bhutia’s Facebook account and the viral clip (right). Woman wearing blue shawl.
According to the video posted on Bhutia’s Facebook, the event took place in Sukhiapokhri (also written as Sukhia Pokhari) in Darjeeling district of West Bengal, India. The town lies along the border with Nepal.
The participants were therefore not Nepali citizens singing the anthem of another country, as the viral caption claimed. They were Gurkha Rifles veterans and family members attending an event in India.
Context
The video circulated as Indian Army chief General Dhiraj Seth visited Nepal from August 17 to 19. On August 17, President Ramchandra Paudel conferred on Seth the honorary rank of General of the Nepal Army in Kathmandu.
Nepal and India have a longstanding tradition of granting honorary general ranks to each other’s army chiefs. This also comes amid uncertainty over the recruitment of Nepali citizens into the Indian Army. Under the 1947 tripartite agreement involving Nepal, India and Britain, Nepali Gurkhas have historically served in the Indian and British armies.
Recruitment into the Indian Army has remained stalled since India introduced the Agnipath scheme in 2022. Under the scheme, most recruits serve for four years, while only 25 per cent are retained for longer service. Nepal has not approved the recruitment of its citizens under these changed conditions, citing concerns about their employment and benefits after discharge.
That dispute, however, is unrelated to the provenance of this video.
Conclusion
Our comparison of the viral footage with another video of the same gathering shows that the event occurred in Sukhiapokhri, Darjeeling, India not in Pokhara, Nepal. The claim that Nepali citizens were shown singing India’s national anthem is false.
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This story first appeared on Nepalcheck and Onlinekhabar is republishing it under a Creative Commons licence.
