Amitabh Bachchan's Pan Masala ad has stirred up a controversy. AN NGO has requested Big Bo to cut all promotional ties; read more details.
Amitabh Bachchan is a brand ambassador and the face of many high-end brands and products. Owners are always eager to rope Big B for promoting their brands. But this time, the Pan Masala ad that Big B promotes has landed him in trouble.
A national anti-tobacco organisation has asked the megastar to withdraw from an advertisement campaign that is promoting pan masala. The organisation stated that it is allegedly motivating youngsters to get obsessed with tobacco addiction. Also Read:Anushka Shetty reveals how she escaped casting couch in Telugu film industry and became superstar
As per a report published in ABP, The President of the National Organisation for Eradication of Tobacco, Shekhar Salkar, has also issued a written letter to Big B, which states that it is proven in medical research that addiction to tobacco and pan masala can hamper the health of the person consuming it, so Big B should withdraw himself from this as soon as possible.
The letter was written to Bachchan reads, "Pan (betel leaf) can act as a direct carcinogenic. Recent research has shown that the substances in betel quid could change into carcinogens in the body, leading to oral cancer. The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) and the World Health Organization (WHO) accepts the scientific evidence that chewing betel quids (pan) is carcinogenic for humans." (sic)
Salkar further added, "As an oncologist and member of an NGO working in the field of tobacco cessation, I am aggrieved and provoked to wage war against the dubious measures, such embellishment done by various influential and famous Bollywood actors like Shah Rukh Khan, Ajay Devgn, Ranveer Singh, and Hritik Roshan, leading to increased tobacco use among students." (sic). The letter points out that students are falling prey to tobacco consumption, and such ads add fuel to such bad habits that can decay their health. Also Read: Kiara Advani, Sidharth Malhotra to Anushka Sharma, Ranbir Kapoor: 5 hottest kissing scenes in Bollywood