Gujarat Ads in Bihar Dailies Modi Govt. Exposed for Using Azamgarh Image, Fooling People

Gujarat Ads in Bihar Dailies Modi Govt. Exposed for Using Azamgarh Image, Fooling People

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OUR STAFF WRITER

Published on

August 12, 2022

The Gujarat government seems to have axed its foot by publishing an Ad depicting Muslims in Gujarat in better conditions, as one of the images used in the Ad was, in violation of the Copyright Act, taken from TwoCircles.net, a US based portal run by Indian Muslims.

The Ad appeared in various dailies, including Roznama Rashtriya Sahara and Pindar (Urdu), Hindustan (Hindi), Times of India and Hindustan Times (English) published from Patna, claiming Muslims in Modi government are prosperous and enjoying better life, a day before Narendra Modi’s visit to the state to attend the BJP national executive meet on June 11.

The title of the ad was: Muslims in Gujarat enjoy better education, employment opportunities, financial stability, health facilities and infrastructure.

In one of the pictures shown in the Ad, the girls are neither Gujarati nor was the picture shot in Gujarat. In fact, it was a picture of girls attending a computer class in Azamgarh’s Shibli National College.

Kashif-ul-Huda, Executive Editor of the news portal, informed Radiance that the image first appeared on the portal’s website on November 24, 2008. Subsequently, it was used as part of the portal’s “Azamgarh Speaks” series.

“This photograph was taken by its reporter in the Computer Department of Shibli National College on November 13, 2008,” he added.

“Narendra Modi is projecting that Muslims in Gujarat are prosperous but then how is it that he is unable to find an image to go along with that. Why had he to resort to a picture from Azamgarh to show ‘Muslims in Gujarat are better’,” Mr. Huda wondered.

Mr. Huda further said this photograph was used by UK based University of Cambridge for a course material seeking due permission, which they had allowed.

He said that his organisation is contemplating copyright violation charges.

The Shibli National College also said it was mulling legal action in the case. “The families of the burqa clad girls shown in the picture used in the advertisement as well as the college management are being consulted in order to see what legal action we can take in this regard,” the college principal, Iftekhar Ahmed, said.

The principal said there is “huge resentment” not just among the families of the girls but also among college students as “it is distortion of facts and nobody is aware as to how the picture found its way in the advertisement”.

As for the Muslim girls whose photographs appeared in Gujarat ads, they also want ‘unconditional apology’.

“This is the sickest joke I’ve heard in 20 years of my life,” Shahla Muzaffar, one of the girls photographed, said in a Times of India report, when she found out she had unwittingly become the ‘new brand ambassador for the Gujarat government led by Narendra Modi’.

“Modi’s rukh (attitude) towards minorities is well-known and hardly needs elaboration,” Shahla said on June 12, adding that the fake advertisement only goes to prove the level of insincerity and callousness. She regrets becoming a pawn in Modi’s promotional strategy.