The first posters of the Goa Goan Gone touted to be Bollywood’s first ‘zomcom’ had drawn the ire of anti-tobacco activists who have sought action against blatant promotion of tobacco and violation of the Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products Act, 2003 (COPTA). Dr Shekhar Salkar, an oncologist and president of the Goa State Medical Council and General Secretary of the National Organisation for Tobacco Eradication (NOTE) has in a letter complained to the District Collector north Goa and the State Deputy Inspector General of Police, seeking that Saif be punished under COPTA.
“We regret to inform you that caution was thrown to wind in the massive publicity campaign done in Goa, India and abroad by putting up a large number of huge advertisements in the newspapers, advertisement on internet of Go Goa Gone showing Saif Ali Khan the lead Actor and producer showing Cigar in his mouth,” the complaint says.
The NOTE has also sent a separate letter to Saif himself reminding him of his stature and influence he exerts on young minds. “You are a well informed gentleman, and I need not mention to you that this action of their idol would be imitated by millions of your followers, eventually pushing most of them in the jaws of cancer and a premature, early death. Unmindful of the imminent consequences, the youths would embrace this menace, just because they would want to imitate their icon,” the letter addressed to Saif said adding: “A person of your stature has to be utterly careful in public appearance, both as an artist and as an individual.”
What got the nerve of the NOTE was the of the film which shows a cigarette burn-hole through the torso of a semi-naked woman. “These advertisements must have been already seen by lakhs of Goans as well as other parts of India and abroad. The display of a popular icon smoking a cigar is a violation of the Section 5(1) of the Central “Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products Act, 2003,” he further says.
NOTE has in the past dragged celebrities such as Amitabh Bachchan to court over the issue of publicising use of tobacco in a film called Family. Shah Rukh Khan and Ajay Devgn have also in the past got the goat of NOTE with the former for smoking during an IPl match and the latter for smoking during shooting for a Bollywood film in a Government owned premises.