The Indian Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW), with technical support from global health experts Vital Strategies, has launched a powerful outdoor campaign to raise awareness of the harms of smokeless tobacco.

Images and messages from the recently-launched Tears You Apart anti-tobacco campaign will feature on the exterior of trains on some of India’s busiest major railway routes across eight states from today until September 2016.

The railway ads will potentially be seen by millions of low and middle income Indians – who are more likely to use smokeless tobacco - across urban and rural areas. This campaign is one of the most geographically extensive health promotion campaigns to utilise the world’s most heavily used railway network.

Tears You Apart campaign shows real victims suffering from horrific cancers and disfigurements as a result of their chewing addiction, including the victims’ relatives who describe how tobacco-related disease has destroyed careers and family life and added to their financial burden.