Patna: Chief minister Nitish Kumar, on Saturday ordered a thorough probe into the fiasco that has surfaced in Jamui district, where a Pakistani girl was featured as "brand ambassador" on a booklet brought out to publicise "Swachh Jamui, Swasth Jamui (clean Jamui, healthy Jamui)" and "Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao" campaigns.

The photograph shows the girl, around 5-6 years of age, sporting a blue kurta and white dupatta, drawing the national flag of Pakistan in her notebook.

Officials said, around 5,000 copies of the promotional material were printed and distributed among school students, anganwadi centres and Kasturba Gandhi Vidyalaya in the district, to popularise the government programmes.

"The chief minister has taken the matter seriously and directed Jamui district magistrate Dharmendra Kumar to conduct a thorough probe," a press communiqué from Nitish's office said.

"Preliminary investigations reveal that the photograph was used by Unicef and some other organisations in Pakistan for female literacy campaigns. How it made it to the cover page of our promotional material is a mystery and is being probed. It is just a matter of time before those responsible for it are brought to light," a senior administrative official posted in Jamui told The Telegraph on the condition of anonymity.

He said efforts were on to withdraw the notebooks, if they were still being used by the students, and action would be taken against those responsible for the goof-up.

Another official added that a previous DM had approved printing of the promotional items, but it was not certain who chose the photograph - officials or the one who designed and printed the notebooks.

A Patna-based printing press - Suprabh Enterprises - which published them, has already denied responsibility. Their representative, Shailesh, said they just printed the matter that was approved by the district administration.