A post with the image of three persons dressed in the police uniform is being widely shared on social media with a claim that they are siblings and they are selected for IPS. Through this article lets fact-check the claim made in the post.
Claim: Image of two brothers and a sister from a same family who became IPS officers.
Fact: The three people in the image are identified as Pooja Vashisth, Tushar Gupta and Shruta Kirti Somavanshi. All these three are IPS officers. They are batchmates but not siblings which was confirmed by Tushar when we reached out to him. Also, Somavanshi reiterated the same through an Instagram account called ‘upscmeme’ of which he is the admin. Hence the claim made in the post is FALSE.
Reverse image search of the photo led us to an Instagram account which shared the same image. According to the bio, the account is of Pooja Vashisth, IPS Probationer (the woman in the image). As per the tags in the image, the person to the left of Pooja is Tushar Gupta and the person seated to her right is Shruta Kirti Somavanshi. Both these men are also IPS Probationers. Even Tushar Gupta has shared the same image on his Instagram account which can be seen here.
Taking a cue from here, we reached out to Tushar Gupta for a clarification regarding the claim. He denied that news that they are siblings and clarified that they are batchmates.
According to the Instagram bio of Shruta Kirti Somavanshi, he is also the admin of the popular Instagram account upscmeme. Through ‘upscmeme’ account, Somavanshi has clarified that they are batchmates and not siblings.
According to the information provided on IPS website, Somavashi is allotted to Madhya Pradesh cadre who is from UP (Home state). Pooja Vashisth is allotted to Haryana cadre which is also her Home state. On the other hand, Tushar Gupta is allotted to Punjab which is also his home state. These details clearly indicate that they are unlikely to be siblings as their Last Names and the Home States are different.
To sum it up, the three IPS Probationers in the image are batchmates and not siblings.
