Fake account posts tweets against Muslims and women in UPSC topper Shubham Kumar’s name

The Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) released the results for the 2020 Civil Services Examination on September 24. Shubham Kumar from Bihar’s Katihar district secured the first rank. He was soon flooded with congratulatory messages and good wishes from all over the country. Meanwhile, some users also began sharing screenshots of a few tweets from a handle claimed to be run by Kumar. The handle made some inappropriate tweets targeting women and Muslims.

Sharing screenshots of these tweets, a user wrote, “IAS topper Shubham is frustrated with women.” (Archived link)

A Facebook page called The Logical Muslims also amplified the screenshots and wrote, “When such people secure the posts of DM and SDM, will they promote India’s development or destruction?” (Archived link)

Another user posted one of the screenshots and wrote, “You can become whatever you want to become, but the poor people of the country are definitely going to bear the brunt of this sad mentality.”

Similarly, numerous other Facebook pages and users also circulated screenshots of the alleged tweets.

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Imposter handle

This handle appeared to be fake right from the beginning. We discovered that all of its past tweets had been deleted. After a closer look at the replies to its pinned tweet (archived link), we noticed the handle’s old usernames were @Mahadev_Bhakt9 and @Charanjit_99.

When we clicked on the first and second usernames on Twitter, we were redirected to old replies that took us to the handle’s current username in Shubham Kumar’s name.

Shubham Kumar later created a Twitter profile himself to clarify this was his personal handle, and the rest are fake accounts.

Hello everyone. I’m Shubham Kumar, AIR 1 CSE 2020. This is my personal account. All other accounts in my name is fake.

— SHUBHAM KUMAR (@SHUBHAMKR_IAS) September 26, 2021

A Twitter handle changed its username in the name of UPSC topper Shubham Kumar. Tweets targeting women and Muslims posted by the account were believed to have been posted by Kumar.