Pak girl’s photo on swachhta booklet triggers furore
NEW DELHI: In the midst of ongoing row over the poster of Mohammad Ali Jinnah in Aligarh Muslim University, a fresh controversy has cropped up in Bihar over featuring of a Pakistani girl as a ‘swachhta emissary’ on the cover page of a booklet meant to promote ‘Swachh Jamui Swasth Jamui’ initiative in Bihar’s Jamui district.
NEW DELHI:
In the midst of ongoing row over the poster of Mohammad Ali Jinnah in Aligarh Muslim University, a fresh controversy has cropped up in Bihar over featuring of a Pakistani girl as a ‘swachhta emissary' on the cover page of a booklet meant to promote ‘Swachh Jamui Swasth Jamui' initiative in Bihar's Jamui district.
In a swift action to prevent opposition party – Rashtriya Janata Dal – from taking on the government over the fiasco, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar ordered a probe into the matter.
Notably, the Bihar CM is already facing the heat of opposition leaders over observing one-minute silence in the ‘memory' of those who ‘lost' their lives in a tragic bus accident in Bihar's East Champaran. Kumar had announced Rs 4 lakh compensation for the next of the kin of those “who lost their lives”. Surprisingly, later on, it came to light that no one was killed in the accident.
Coming back to Jamui incident, the incident came to light on Friday and further investigation revealed that the girl was being promoted as the face of UNICEF in Pakistan for education. The booklet and notebooks that bear the girl's photo were distributed in schools, anganwadi centres, children of Kasturba school among others.
Commenting on the incident, Jamui DM Dharmendra Kumar told Millennium Post that a probe has been initiated into the incident, which would be completed by next week.
“The Pakistani girl in the photo is not a brand ambassador. The girl's photo was featured in one of the booklets printed to promote cleanliness in schools. Let the probe report come and necessary action would be taken against the erring officials,” the Jamui DM said.
According to sources, the printer took a prior approval from the district administration before putting the photograph on the notebook covers. The Jamui administration had asked the Patna-based printer to print about 5,000 booklets which were distributed to schoolchildren last year.