A collage of two images of a lady being fed sweets by two elders in a rural setting is viral with the false claim that it shows an Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer from rural Karnataka who ranked third in the IAS examination.
We found that the person in the photo is indeed, Venkata Revathi, who hails from a village in Andhra Pradesh. However, she is a Sub-Inspector at a Disha police station in Rajahmundry City. She told BOOM over a telephonic conversation, that she had not appeared for the Civil Services Examination.
Amitava Chakravorty, the Joint Secretary of Bharatiya Janata Party's West Bengal unit, posted the collage with the caption: "IAS Topper 3rd Rank Revathi, from Karnataka got selected for I.A.S. She is being congratulated by her parents who are daily wagers. She is a role model and an inspiration to our BHARATIYA Society. Congregation Her Father, Mother & Her also, Best Wishes Sister. (sic)"
A quick keyword search using the caption revealed that this image has been viral for over three years with at least two separate narratives.
The image went extremely viral in July 2017, when it was shared with a similar narrative as the one shared by Chakravorty. The post has raked up more than 90000 shares since then.
Hindi news website Jan Samachar had also shared these images in December 2017 with a different story - that her name was Rabha and she was an Assistant Superintendent of a jail in Madhya Pradesh.
Fact Check
BOOM performed reverse image searches on the two photos in the viral collage, and came across a series of posts by two local Telugu websites - Journalismpower.com and Telugu.ap2g.com - about Venkata Revathi, a lady hailing from a poor family in a town called Avanigadda in Andhra Pradesh, who went on to become a Sub-Inspector.
Both the posts were published towards the end of March 2017, and they both carried the viral images tweeted by Chakravorty.
BOOM reached out to Avanigadda Police Station, who told us that the person in the photo is in fact Revathi, and that she is currently the Sub-Inspector at a Disha police station in Rajahmundry City in Andhra Pradesh. Disha police stations were set up in Andhra Pradesh earlier this year to effectively deal with crimes against women and children and to fast-track the judicial proceedings.
We then reached out to Revathi herself, who confirmed to us that she was indeed the same person as in the viral photo. She rubbished the claims regarding her being an IAS officer, and also stated that she had never taken the Civil Services Examination.
"This is all fake, I'm a Sub-Inspector in Rahahmundry, not an IAS officer", she said. According to Revathi, the photograph was taken in March, 2017, after she was offered a post of Sub Inspector. Seen in the image, Revathi's parents congratulating her.