MHA gaffe: Report carries Spain-Morroco border picture instead of India-PaK

 The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has landed in the soup after it used a picture of Spain-Morocco border to highlight the floodlighting of the Indian borders with Pakistan.

The faux pas came to light when a website reported about it, providing the picture printed in the Annual Report 2016-17 of the MHA and the original photo. There was no reaction from the MHA on the issue till late evening.

However, sources said Home Secretary Rajiv Mehrishi has sought the explanation from officers and wanted to fix responsibility for the goof-up.

The image appeared on page 40 of the annual report under the topic floodlight on Indo-Pak border. However, the website reported that the picture was taken in 2006 by a Spanish photographer Javier Moyano.

According to the annual report, the government has sanctioned 2043.76 km of floodlights along the International Border in Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab, Rajasthan and Gujarat.

Of the sanctioned length, the authorities have completed 1,943.76 km of floodlighting so far.

In 2010, the then UPA government faced huge embarrassment when a full page newspaper advertisement given to mark the National Girl Child Day carried a photograph of former Pakistan air force chief Tanvir Mohamed Ahmed along with that of the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress president Sonia Gandhi.