A photo is being shared on social media claiming it is a picture of a mason Sumit Vishwakarma who is said to have secured 53rd rank in the UPSC Civil Services Examination (CSE). Let’s verify the claim made in the post.
Claim: Photo of Sumit Vishwakarma who secured 53rd rank in the UPSC Civil Services Examination.
Fact: In 2019, several news websites misreported Sumit Vishwakarma from Madhya Pradesh’s Jabalpur district as Sumit Kumar, the person who secured 53rd rank in the 2018 Civil Services Examination. Sumit Kumar, who hails from the Jamui district in Bihar, issued a clarification stating that the media is covering the wrong person linking to his rank in the 2018 Civil Services Examination. Sumit Vishwakarma, the person who was seen in the photo did not secure 53rd rank in the Civil Services Examination. Hence, the claim made in the post Is False.
On reverse image search of the photo shared in the post and by searching using relevant keywords on the internet, we found an article published by the ‘Times of India’ news website about the news of a mason Sumit Vishwakarma securing 53rd rank in the 2018 UPSC Civil Services Examination. TOI in the article reported that several news websites have misreported Sumit Vishwakarma from Madhya Pradesh’s Jabalpur district as Sumit Kumar, the person who actually secured 53rd rank in the 2018 Civil Services Examination. TOI reported that the 53rd rank holder of the 2018 Civil Services Examination was Sumit Kumar, who hails from the Jamui district in Bihar.
When we searched further, we found the list of candidates selected in the 2018 Civil Services Examination. The 53rd rank holder’s name in the merit list was mentioned as Sumit Kumar, not Sumit Vishwakarma. Sumit Vishwakarma’s name was not listed in the 2018 Civil Services Examination selected candidates list announced on 05 April 2019.
Reporting further details of this fake news spreading on social media, ‘NDTV’ and a few other news websites published articles in 2019. Sumit Kumar through Facebook (the post is now deleted) and Twitter issued a clarification about media covering the wrong person with his rank in the 2018 Civil Services Examination. Speaking to ‘Alt News’, Sumit Kumar said, “I had put out a Facebook post after I was informed that media has misreported [someone else as me]. Now, I have made my Facebook post private as my contact details were also there in the screenshots, [of the application form]which I had posted”. A few more details of Sumit Kumar, the 53rd rank holder in the 2018 Civil Services Examination can be seen here.
To sum it up, old fake news about a mason securing 53rd rank in the UPSC Civil Services Examination is revived again as a true story.
