Mountaineer Musa Ibrahim has blamed the controversy over his Everest ascent to sheer envy.
He said this in a press statement on Friday.
An official Nepali publication, listing those who climbed Mt Everest, left out Ibrahim, triggering a controversy fanned by a report ran by a private TV channel.
Ibrahim’s claim of being the first Bangladeshi to climb the world’s highest peak had been challenged earlier too.
A Dhaka court is currently hearing a case on the matter.
One of his teammates, Shamsul Alam Babu, has also alleged that Ibrahim had procured documents certifying his summiting of Mt Langsisa Ri without actually having climbed the peak.
“Some people have been trying to undermine this feat since Bangladesh became the 67th nation to climb Mt Everest,” Ibrahim said in the statement on Friday.
“In 2010, there was a big debate and online investigation. Eventually, the doubters came to admit that I did climb the Everest.”
He regretted that doubts were again being cast on his achievement after four years, including by three Everest climbers who managed the feat after him.
“I am proud and happy about their success. I believe they have been incited by someone to feel jealous and raise suspicion,” he said.
Ibrahim said he was surprised to see the other mountaineers airing their doubts without producing a shred of evidence.
He claimed the Nepalese publication was ‘faulty’.
“It does not list Junko Tabei, the first woman to climb Mt Everest,” he said in support of his criticism.
Tabei, a Japanese mountaineer, had climbed Mt Everest in 1975 as the 38th climber.
“Bangladesh’s MA Muhit, too, had climbed the peak on May 21, 2011, but the publication puts 2012 as the date of the feat,” Ibrahim said.
He said his organisation, North Alpine Club Bangladesh, had contacted Ang Shering Sherpa, president of the Nepal Mountaineering Association, the publisher of Nepal Parbat.
Shering Sherpa has told his club that Nepal does not keep records of those who have climbed Mt Everest from the Chinese-Tibetan side.
He said Jimba Jambung Sherpa was the president of the association when the publication came out and had, apparently, admitted to Ibrahim’s club that there had been some inadvertent mistakes in it.
Source: Bd news24