New Delhi: Social media users appear to have been taken in by a fake Twitter account of Sameer Wankhede, the Narcotics Control Bureau’s (NCB) zonal director making headlines in the drugs case involving Shah Rukh Khan’s son Aryan.
Sameer Wankhede is a 2008-batch Indian Revenue Services (IRS) officer.
The account, created in August this year, has posted only five tweets and has received thousands of likes and comments for its posts. It had about 12,000 followers by the time this report was published. Most of the content it posted praises Wankhede for putting ‘culprits’ behind the bars.
Fact check
A search for replies to the Twitter handle in question prior to Aryan Khan’s arrest on 3 October raises suspicion over its authenticity.
Using Twitter advanced search, it was found that in the replies to the tweets of the ‘Wankhede’ account, people were addressing an individual named Sneha with the handle @iSnehaAgarwal. This particular handle no longer exists.
Also, all the tweets that got a huge number of likes and retweets from the ‘Wankhede’ handle were posted in just the last 24 hours. Prior to that, this account was still being addressed as Sneha in replies. All the tweets posted by @iSnehaAgarwal were deleted, but the replies remained.
One Twitter user even took a screenshot of Sneha’s name on ‘Sameer Wankhede’s’ alleged account.
ok @iSnehaAgarwal pic.twitter.com/GeAgG1Lxxy
— Maneesh Agarwal (@iManeeshAgarwal) October 23, 2021
ThePrint reached Wankhede over telephone for a comment, but he said he was “busy”.
Fake celebrity accounts
Fake accounts of celebrities and public figures have often appeared on social media.
Last year, several fake accounts of Bharatiya Kisan Union’s chief Rakesh Tikait had surfaced on Twitter — it garnered thousands of likes and followers.
In 2020, after actor Sushant Singh Rajput allegedly committed suicide, fake accounts of his sister and father surfaced. Several people, including a TV news channel, had also fallen for the hoax.
In collaboration with SM HoaxSlayer