Fact Check: 14 yr-old becomes ‘DSP’ for 1 day on Women’s Day, pic goes viral but with misleading claim
Newsroompost did some research and we found out that this claim along with the photos to be misleading.
New Delhi: Two pictures of a young girl in hijab with policemen are going viral on social media with the claim that a 24-year-old Muslim girl in Mumbai qualified the Indian Administrative Services (IAS) exam.
These photos also claims that she is the first Muslim woman to become SP in Maharashtra through Urdu Medium.
What is going viral?
One of the images shows the girl sitting on a chair surrounded by policemen, while the other shows cops saluting her.
These images have been shared from multiple accounts
Facebook Page Burhan for “Kishtwar” posted the pictures with the caption, “24 Year’s Old Indian Muslim Girl Qualifies IAS in Maharashtra Mumbai”.
A user named Sanjay Pandey shared this picture with a false claim. We came to know that the user hails from Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh, and has 4,989 followers on Facebook.
Many Facebook users have shared this misleading post.
The investigation
Newsroompost did some research and we found out that this claim along with the photos to be misleading. The girl seen in the picture is a 14-year-old school student, who was made a District Superintendent of Police (DSP) in Buldhana district of Maharashtra ahead of International Women’s Day. She is not an IPS officer.
To investigate the post, we first took a screenshot of this picture and did a reverse image search on google. We found that a YouTube video of “The Times of India” regarding the incident. As per this news report, 14-year-old Sahrish Kanwal of the Zilla Parishad Urdu High School in Malkapur tehsil took over as DSP for a day in Maharashtra’s Buldhana district.
Watch here:
https://youtu.be/IAMc1cmnprk
The district administration had taken the initiative just before International Women’s Day to motivate girls and allow them to experience how officials function and also address other issues.
The Times of India had published a detailed report on the same on March 5. Therefore, it is clear that the girl seen in the viral photos has not cracked the IAS exam but took over as DSP for a day.
Conclusion
The 14-year-old girl was made DSP for a day in Maharashtra’s Buldhana district as part of International Women’s Day celebrations.