Pakistani girl's photo features on an Indian booklet's cover page

Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar ordered an inquiry after discovering that a photo of a Pakistani girl was used on the cover page of a booklet on cleanliness, as reported by the Hindustan times.

The Jamui district water and cleanliness committee (DWCC) apparently distributed the booklet among students a few weeks back.



The DWCC official and the printing press both placed blames on one another for this mishap.

District Magistrate Dharmendra Kumar, also the DWCC chairman has reassured that the remaining booklets will be distributed after removing the cover page, further stating that the girl's picture was used by UNICEF for promoting education in Pakistan.



According to a senior official of the district, who supervised the distribution of the booklets, 4,000 copies of the booklets were printed.

"We selected the picture from UNICEF website, as it looked impressive. We did not notice that the girl was from Pakistan or was drawing a Pakistani flag," he added.

Jamui development commissioner (DDC) Satish Kumar stated that the booklet was printed by a Patna based printing company, Suprabh Enterprises, while the photos were approved by the former DWCC district magistrate Kaushal Kishore beforehand.



While an official of the district rural development organisation Niranjan Chawdhary expressed utter surprise and disbelief as to how the printer chose to feature a Pakistani girl's photo on the cover page of the booklet.

 

This story originally appeared in the Hindustan Times