A daughter paying tribute to her father after topping the IAS exam? (PHOTO)

An unusual photo of a young woman pulling a rickshaw, which carried an old man, went viral in Sri Lankan social media circles. The woman was claimed to be the girl who topped the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) exam and the person inside was said to be her father.

However, our investigation revealed these viral posts had been shared with a misleading narration.

Social Media Posts

We detected a social media post with the above-mentioned image which said “She got the highest marks in the Indian Administrative Service and showed her father to the world this way”

Facebook| Archived

Users commented in appreciation of this act as seen below.

Fact Check

We did a Google Reverse Image search and were able to find the original photo which had been posted by a female travel blogger in India named Sharmona Poddar in 2018, on her Instagram account.

She published this image with the following caption.

“Since childhood, whenever I used to visit the north and central part of Calcutta essentially, I would feel sympathetic every time I would spot a hand-pulled rickshaw, thereby choosing not to use them. Until recently when my sympathy coincided with the realization that we're helping to earn their bread and butter only when we're taking a ride.

So last time I was in Calcutta, the #wildcraftwildling in me decided to pull a hand-pull rickshaw instead, to see how difficult and strenuous it really is. I asked the rickshaw uncle to have a seat while I pulled him around on the streets of Shobhabazar, tickling the bell at intervals while the whole street stood and watched in awe.

I realized though there is a lot of mechanisms involved; it wasn't a piece of cake at all. All my years of inquisitiveness transpired to salutation for the extreme precision and relentless efforts that go in during each trip made. Yet each day they wake up with the same enthusiasm to battle the odds. This spirit is what inspires me to be #ReadyforAnything.”

The original post is seen below.

Insta | Archived

After posting this image to Sharmona Poddar’s Instagram handle, the image had shared with misleading narrations in India as well as many regional areas. In response to these misleading rumors, Sharmona had once again made a Facebook post. In this post, she requested the public to avoid sharing this image without a proper lookup at the issue.

Archived

To get further confirmation, we checked the toppers list of the administrative exam of India in last 30-40 years and clearly detected that Sharmona Poddar's name had not been mentioned among them either. You can also check it out here. Archived.

The Sinhala language fact check of this can be read here

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Conclusion

According to our investigation, we found that the viral image of a rickshaw-pulling girl did not represent a daughter carrying a father to pay her gratitude, after topping the Indian IAS exam. The viral photo depicts a travel blogger named Sharmona Poddar who had been compassionate about rickshaw drivers. She was pulling a rickshaw in empathy towards the rickshaw drivers in Kolkata and the person sitting inside is actually one of the rickshaw drivers.

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