Shame on Pakistan

New Delhi/ United Nations: A day after India's External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj ripped apart Pakistan at UNGA, Pakistan's Permanent Representative to the United Nations Maleeha Lodhi has made a major goof up after showing a fake image of a "pellet gun victim" in the UN General Assembly.

Maleeha Lodhi, branding India as ‘mother of terrorism’ in South Asia, resorted to waving dramatic pictures of a girl with pellet injuries on her face and added, "this was the face of Indian democracy", while suggesting that Kashmiris had been injured by pellet guns. Her face, riddled with wounds, was the face of India, Lodhi said.

It was a resounding lie. However, upon closer inspection of the picture, Maleeha Lodhi's claim seemed to have boomeranged on her. The picture used by the Pakistan’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations was reported by a number of media outlets as that of Rawia Abu Joma'a, a 17-year-old woman injured in Israeli airstrikes on Gaza city.

Rawia's picture was taken by award winning photographer Heidi Levine for ‘The National’, an UAE daily. The picture is dated back from July 22, 2014. During that period unrest broke out in Kashmir after Hizbul Mujahideen terrorist Burhan Wani was killed in an encounter by security forces.

What's incredible is that Maheela Lodhi is a former journalist, and should know the basics of fact-checking. The website of Pakistan's Mission to the UN says she was "the founding editor of Pakistan’s leading English daily, The News," and "the first woman in all of Asia to become the editor of a national daily newspaper."

At least two Pakistani websites participated in this failure of journalistic ethics. Pakistan Defence, a website which claims to be that nation's "largest digital forum" and purports to disseminate news, retweeted the Pakistani UN Mission's message without bothering to do a fact-check.