False: A viral image shows a 29-year-old man from Lucknow who failed the UPSC exams due to the reservation system.

By: Rashmi S
June 11 2021

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The photo used in the viral post is of Sayeed Rimon, which is part of a Bangladeshi unemployment campaign. The caption about the cut-off is baseless. A social media post in 2020 claimed that a 29-year-old civil services aspirant named Rajesh Tiwari from Lucknow Uttar Pradesh failed a civil services exam despite scoring 643 because the general cut-off category was 689 in 2021. The post had a picture of Tiwari crying with a file in his hand. However, the man in the photo is Sayeed Rimon and not someone named Rajesh Tiwari. According to Rimon's Facebook page, he is a Bangladeshi textile engineer who campaigns against various social issues like petty theft and social behavior. In June 2021, Rimon published a Facebook post with the same picture and said that he is a Bangladeshi, but this picture is also circulated in India, with the same caption. Facebook has also added a disclaimer to the image, saying that it is fake. The official UPSC website posted the cut-off range from 2017-20. While the cut-off marks for the general category are more than that of SC and ST candidates, none of the figures on the official site match with the figures mentioned in the post in question. In an exclusive interview with Dhaka Tribune, Rimon said that he portrays himself as the main character in his photos to highlight social concerns that impact the general public. For example, he posed as a pickpocket in one of his posts to spread awareness about the crime. Rimon also said that his posts are used in Bangladesh by the police to spread awareness. According to BBC, Rimon used Facebook primarily for communication and promotion. Rimon said that the idea of using Facebook was to educate people about various crimes via such photos.