kathmandu . A TikTok user has been arrested on charges of threatening Drinking Pradeep Yadav and Birgunj Mayor Rajeshman Singh over the phone. Since Friday, an audio recording of a conversation between Minister Yadav and Kiran Sah has gone viral on social media. In the audio, Sah can be heard strongly questioning the minister about the cholera outbreak in Birgunj.

After Yadav finally answered her repeated calls, Sah asked why he had not been picking up. She accused him of negligence, saying that many people had died due to cholera in Birgunj and that hospitals were overwhelmed with patients. She also alleged that water was being distributed without proper testing.

Sah further revealed that four members of her own family were undergoing treatment for cholera, with one admitted to the ICU, and complained about the lack of proper medical care. In the viral audio, she challenged the minister, saying: “I won’t spare you, I’m not afraid.”

Police said Sah was held at the District Police Office in Parsa on Saturday evening for questioning. She has been accused of threatening Minister Yadav and Mayor Singh over the phone. SP Gautam Mishra, Chief of Parsa Police, informed that she was taken into custody from Birgunj under cybercrime investigation, based on complaints filed by the minister’s personal secretary and the mayor. According to police, she had threatened both officials a few days earlier and later made the recorded phone conversations public on social media.

Cholera Outbreak in Birgunj

Meanwhile, cholera has spread at the community level in Birgunj. The outbreak has been reported in wards 11, 12, 13, and 16, leading to an increasing number of patients at local hospitals. Experts suspect the outbreak is linked to contamination of drinking water pipelines by sewage.

In response, Birgunj Metropolitan City has suspended classes in all community and institutional schools and banned the sale of street foods such as panipuri, chat, and chaat within the city.

According to Dr. Das, former head of the Epidemiology and Disease Control Division (EDCD), the situation is more challenging because the outbreak is spreading in densely populated areas. EDCD has confirmed the presence of E. coli bacteria in the drinking water — a bacteria found in human feces and considered a major cause of diarrhea. Experts say leakage in pipelines, many of which run through drains, is likely to have caused the cholera outbreak in Birgunj.