Pak girl in Rajasthan govt ads, probe begins

New Delhi, June 7: The Congress government in Rajasthan has landed itself in a soup over an advertisement. It was using a photo of a Pakistani girl to showcase its welfare schemes.

Yesterday, the state government ordered an inquiry into the use of a missing Pakistani girl's photograph to advertise for nearly two years its flagship schemes to protect the girl child.

The Directorate of Information and Public Relations (DIPR) has also sent a notification asking departments to strictly use photos taken by their own photographers or by the directorate. The departments have also been told not to pick pictures from the Internet without verifying its authenticity.

The government realised its mistake after a leading vernacular daily reported the use of a missing Pakistani girl's photo to advertise schemes to protect the girl child. the advertisement was displayed through hoardings across the state and the photo was also used in the May edition of DIPR's monthly magazine, Sujas.

The report claimed that the photo used is that of a Pakistani Hindu girl who went missing three years ago. Her picture was part of a missing report and put on the Internet.

DIPR officials said they had sourced the photo from the Department of Women and Child Development and the concerned department has now ordered a probe into how this picture was picked up.

OneIndia News