Two police officers have been sacked after it was revealed they faked claims that they were the first Indian couple to climb Everest.
Dinest and Tarakeshwari Rathod said they had reached the 8,850m summit in May last year.
But, they had faked photographs allegedly showing them at the mountain’s peak, police in Maharashtra state said.
An inquiry was launched into the couple’s claims after fellow climbers questioned their success.
One mountaineer, based in Bangalore, told reporters that the photographs shared by the couple belonged to him.
Some people questioned the speed with which the couple made the ascent while others noticed they had changed their clothes and boots after leaving base camp.
Additional Commissioner Sahebrao Patil told the PTI news agency that the couple “shared misleading information” and “brought disrepute to the Maharashtra Police department”, the BBC reported.
The couple were handed a 10-year mountaineering ban by Nepalese authorities last year over the fake claim.
The country’s tourism department had initially certified their ascent but changed their decision following an investigation.
