Pune: Constable couple who faked Mount Everest's climb dismissed from service

Pune's suspended constant couple who lied about scaling Mount Everest have been dismissed from the police services. The couple Dinesh and Tarkeshwari Rathod had claimed to climb the world's highest mountain in May last year.

Pune Police had suspended the couple last year in November. Police had set a fact-finding committee to conduct an inquiry about the couple's claim of climbing Everest. The inquiry confirmed that the claims made by the two were bogus and fraudulent.

"The couple faked about the Everest ascent, morphed the photographs, shared misleading information and while doing this, brought disrepute to the Maharashtra police department and did not report to duty. Based on the inquiry, we dismissed the couple from the department and an order to this effect was issued on Saturday," Sahebrao Patil, Additional Commissioner of Police (admin) of Pune police, said.

The couple had been issued a show-cause notice in May this year and they were asked why they should not be dismissed from the services, he added.

Dinesh and Tarkeshwari, posted at Shivajinagar police headquarters in the city, had claimed on June 5 last year that they have become the first Indian couple to scale the Everest.

A group of local mountaineers had later claimed that couple was never at the summit and alleged that they had faked their expedition by morphing photographs, which showed them at the Everest peak.

In August (last year), the Nepal government had reportedly banned the entry of Dinesh and Tarkeshwari in Nepal for 10 years.

Following a complaint against the Rathods, an inquiry was ordered into the allegations and the city police had also written to the Nepal government to investigate the claim.

Surendra Shelke, one of the complainants and secretary of a city-based mountaineering association, had alleged that the couple had morphed the pictures and there were several discrepancies in the version given about the summit, which could prove the falseness of the claim.