Himalayan con couple sacked from Pune police for faking Everest summit

Tarkeshwari and Dinesh Rathod at a press conference on May 26 when they claimed to have summited Mt EverestThe cop couple Dinesh Rathod and his wife Tarkeshwari who had faked their summit of Mt Everest last year have finally been dismissed from service The couples shenanigans were exposed in a series of exclusive reports by freelance journalist Anusha Subramanian and this correspondent The two had claimed they were the first Indian police couple to summit Everest on May 23 2016 supporting their claim by photoshopping images of another climberThe con cop couple has been found guilty of using fraudulent means to fake their Mt Everest climb and embarrassing the Maharashtra Police in the process On Saturday night at 11 pm the dismissal order was issued and handed over to the Rathods at their Wakad police line houseHow it unravelledThe scam began to unravel as soon as midday broke the story on June 29 2016 On reading the frontpage report Bengaluru mountaineer Satyarup Siddhanta realised the couple had stolen his summit photo and morphed their faces on it He filed a complaint with the Cyber Cell On learning of the couples sacking Satyarup said This incident was unfortunate and its difficult to express my views at this moment but anything done by wrongful means never succeeds in lifeAlso read Himalayan con Suspended Pune cop couple gets dismissal noticeAlso read Himalayan con Constable couple approaches tribunal over suspensionLast June eight fellow mountaineers from Maharashtra Anjali Kulkarni Surendra Shelke and others had also approached the Pune police chief Rashmi Shukla asking for a probe The matter was under investigation by the police as well as Nepals department of tourism which confirmed that the summit photos of the couple had indeed been morphed The Rathods summit certificates were cancelled and the couple were banned from climbing Everest or any other mountain in Nepal for 10 yearsThe couple were also suspended after a factfinding committee submitted a 267page report stating The Rathods have remained unavailable to clear their stand despite repeated opportunity given to them there is a lot of mismatch between their claims and the facts that have come outAlso read Himalayan con couple now make another tall claim about conspiracyAlso read From Mount Everest to Ground Zero Pune cop couples fall from graceCopspeakAdditional Commissioner of Police administration Sahebrao Patil said The dismissal was carried out based on the factfinding committees report and other evidence that we have gathered The duo are held guilty and dismissed from service permanently due to their actionsSurendra Shelke the secretary of the PimpriChinchwad Mountaineering Association added This is great news We knew they were conning the police department Their shoes did not match those in the pictures they gave to the mediaAlso read Himalayan Con Pune constable couple finally suspendedAlso read Nepal slaps 10year climbing ban on Pune cop coupleThe other side Tarkeshwari told this reporter This is really an injustice to us We were not given an opportunity to clear our stand we were not heard properlyShe added On Saturday around 11 pm four male constables approached our house in the absence of my husband and gave me the notice This is not done We will now knock on the courts doors for justiceAlso read Himalayan con Pune constable couple to be stripped of Everest recordAlso read Himalayan con Probe ordered into Pune couples Everest recordThe couple had time to clear their stand until May 31 after they were issued a show cause notice by the Pune Commissionerate on May 25 The next day the couple held a press conference and insisted that they were not lyingThe couples lawyer Ramesh Rathod said My clients carried out their summit while they were on leave and not on duty Their jobs had nothing to do with itThey were not heard properly and till date they have not got the report from the factfinding committee for which they had applied under the Right to Information Act added the lawyer