What Led NCB To Turn Off Comments On Alia Bhatt’s Anti-Drugs Video?

The Narcotics Control Bureau faced a wave of criticism after featuring the popular actress in an anti-drug campaign, with many social media users questioning the choice and calling the video ‘ironic.’

August 20, 2025: After a lot of people on social media said bad things about a recent post with actress Alia Bhatt, the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) had to turn off comments.

The NCB’s Chandigarh branch uploaded the message on its official X (previously Twitter) account. It showed Alia in a video imploring people to promise not to consume drugs.

Alia gives a speech in the video asking people to support the “Nasha Mukt Bharat” (Drugs-Free India) campaign and says, “Say yes to life and no to drugs.” The post, which has over 1.1 million views and 680 reposts, rapidly drew a lot of criticism.

People who left nasty comments, which were pulled off after a few were posted, thought it was ironic that a Bollywood actor was the face of an anti-drug campaign. Many others on social media kept trolling by using the quote-tweet tool. One person wrote, “Bollywood spreading drug awareness,” while others made fun of her husband, actor Ranbir Kapoor, by name-dropping him. It looks like the response is because people remember the film industry’s prior problems with drugs.

One person, who was skeptical of the effort, wrote, “Why do they keep making us take pledges?” When has a promise ever worked? I’m not going to say “but I promised Alia Bhatt” if someone offers me drugs.

Alia Bhatt is one of Bollywood’s most famous and highest-paid actors. She was recently featured in the movie Jigra and is now working on a number of big projects, such as Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Love and War and Yash Raj Films’ spy thriller Alpha. After a leaked post-credits sequence from the movie War 2 hinted at her arrival into the YRF Spy Universe, there has been a lot of talk online about her role in the latter.

The event shows how hard it is for government organizations to work with famous people on social projects because their prior problems and public image may frequently get in the way of the message they want to send.