Indian police officers fired for lying about conquering Everest

They wanted fame and recognition, and as a result they became famous all over the world, got sued, and even lost a prestigious job.

The leadership of one of the police departments in the Indian state of Maharashtra dismissed two employees-spouses who were caught last year publishing fake pictures from the summit of Mount Everest. Dinesh and Tarakeshwari Rathod posted the pictures in May 2016 and claimed to be the first married couple in India to conquer the highest peak of the Earth.

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Indian couple Dinesh and Tarakeshwari Rathod made headlines in the world media last year, when it turned out that they lied, calling themselves the first Indian couple to conquer Mount Everest. "My wife and I decided that we can't have a baby until we climb Mount Everest. Now we can proudly become parents," Dinesh (pictured) said importantly at a press conference in Kathmandu in the summer of 2016.

Last year, Dinesh and Tarakeshvari Rathod announced that on May 23 they managed to successfully reach the highest peak of the Earth (8850 m). In confirmation of their achievement, they showed photographs allegedly taken during the ascent. Nepal's Tourism department issued the Ratod couple an official certificate of conquering the summit, and some Indian media hastened to call this event a "national victory".

However, a month after that, a mountaineer from Bangalore, Satyarup Sidhantha, said that the photos presented by the spouses actually belong to him. "They took my pictures and photoshopped themselves on top… And received certificates… Where is rock climbing going?" — Sidhantha wrote on social networks.

Suspicions were intensified due to time inconsistencies: experts noticed that too little time had passed between the arrival of climbers at the base camp and reaching the summit.

Another climber, Surendra Selke, drew attention to the clothes of Dinesh and Tarakeshvari. "At the beginning of the ascent, Dinesh is wearing a red and black down jacket, at the top of the mountain he is wearing an orange down jacket. It is almost impossible to change clothes during the ascent, since the risk of frostbite is high. I am 100% sure that the photos were taken at the base camp or in the studio, and then carefully processed and cropped," he said.

When the fake was noticed and made public, eight climbers filed official complaints against dishonest police officers, pointing out that their actions detract from the achievements of those who actually managed to climb the highest point of the Earth.

As a result, fake photos from the summit of Mount Everest were considered in court. Of course, the forgery of photographs in order to obtain a certificate cannot be considered a criminal offense, but according to the results of the court, the Nepalese authorities banned the couple from mountaineering in the country for 10 years.

Sahebrao Patil, one of the heads of the investigation, said that the Rathod couple "spread false information" and "brought the Maharashtra police into disrepute." As a result of the investigation, the couple were dismissed from their posts a year after their fake "ascent" of Mount Everest. Whether the couple will try to challenge their dismissal is unknown.