Bollywood 'smoking ban' slammed as censorship

New Delhi: Bollywood star Shah Rukh Khan has slammed a call to ban smoking on the big screen as censorship.

"I think there is a huge amount of creative freedom that should be allowed in cinema and the arts," he said.

Known to be a smoker - he's been spotted lighting up at cricket matches and elsewhere - Khan said he agreed that "one should try and quit smoking."

But, he added that smoking in the movies is "make believe, we must not have too much censorship on that."

The health minister Anbumani Ramadoss had reignited the debate about smoking on Sunday, saying actors should stop puffing away on screen.

Ramadoss has helped enact a number of laws banning smoking in various public places - most of them routinely ignored - and on Sunday he targeted Bollywood stars.

Influence

"We have statistics which show that 52 per cent of children have their first puff because of movie celebrities," Ramadoss told CNN-IBN news channel.

He cited by name arguably the country's two biggest male stars - Amitabh Bachchan, universally known as the Big B, and Rukh Khan, whom nearly everyone calls King Khan.

About 250 million people use tobacco in India. Smoking and chewing tobacco kills more than 900,000 people every year, according to the Health Ministry.

Even as an increasing number of countries clamp down on smoking, Indians freely puff away in playgrounds, railway stations, sidewalk cafes and even hospitals, a situation the health minister has long sought to change.