Controversies created by fake Facebook profiles are not new to Munnar Assistant Superintendent of Police Merin Joseph .The latest among the series is a post against the reservation system in India, which was uploaded by one of the fan pages run using her name.
The post makes a comparison of scores secured by two UPSC aspirants- one from the general category and the other belonging to a SC community. According to the post, the SC a girl who secured less marks than the boy from GC qualified for the Civil Service main examination owing to the reservation policy, whereas the latter was rejected despite getting more marks.
A Facebook account under the name “Merin Joseph” shared a post and put up a caption against the reservation system.
The post garnered the interest of Facebook users, with a lot of them sharing and commenting on the post, believing that it was posted by Merin herself. Some media outlets to reported that Merin was against reservation.
However, when The News Minute contacted Merin Joseph, she cleared the air and said that she had no idea about any such post. “I have nothing to do about it. Yes, it does look like I have put it up but it is just another fake account,” she said.
“It is okay to create a fan page but one has to mention that it is a fan page. Otherwise, it misleads a lot of people. Even in this case, it looks like I have talked against reservation and that is exactly why people are sharing it and commenting on it,” she added.
Further, she said that people should not post personal views through such accounts.
“Issues like reservation are debatable. It is not right to post personal views from an account that is under a government official’s name. I have reported this matter to Facebook but I don’t know if they will pull it down,” she said.
This, however, is not the first time a fake Facebook profile has caused trouble for Merin.
Earlier this month, a person named Prince John was arrested in connection with a money extortion case. Prince had imposed himself as Merin’s brother and had posted pictures of her on a fake Facebook account to make his claim believable.
Merin had then taken up the case with the cyber cell and helped in arresting the person. She had also put up a Facebook post from her own account, warning her followers to look out for such fake accounts under her name.