On Wednesday, the human interest site Humans of Bombay shared the story of 22-year-old Muskaan Bawa who has apparently secured admission to the prestigious Harvard University to pursue her Master’s education. In a video shared on Humans of Bombay’s Instagram handle, Muskaan says she has a single mother and claims to be the youngest person from India to be accepted into Harvard. She says the fee of the course is 23 lakhs and requests people to donate to her education on the crowdfunding website Ketto.
“The path to Harvard has been expensive— Rs. 2.5 lakhs alone went into my application & visa fees! My mom is a single mom & the breadwinner; she’s putting down her savings for me. Still, Rs. 23 lakhs more are required for me to study there,” the caption accompanying the video says.
The post has, however, caused an outrage on social media, with people calling it a scam. Some social media users pointed out that Muskaan is asking for donations on two crowdfunding websites- Ketto and Milaap. While she is asking people to donate Rs 23 lakhs on one site, she is asking for Rs 25 lakh on the other. That is not all. People also pointed out that in Ketto, she has mentioned that she hails from Chandigarh while in Milaap, she has said she is from Dharamshala. Some users also found out that the 22-year-old is already a model with a modelling agency.
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Here’s what social media users had to say –
Following the outrage, Humans of Bombay issued a statement saying that they carried out the story after checking all her documents.
“At Humans Of Bombay, no fundraiser is taken up without an elaborate vetting of documents and due diligence. Muskaan’s story is no different. First, an interview was conducted where each and every fact was confirmed after which every document associated with her fundraiser was vetted and only after that was the fundraiser brought to you all,” the human interest site said.
