The Facebook page of Amitabh Bachchan where he criticised Bihar police

Social cause cannot be an excuse for illegal use of pictures and logo — that too by lawkeepers.

Police in Kaimur district, around 200km southwest of Patna, have learnt it the hard way through social networking comments of none other than Amitabh Bachchan.

In absence of proper intellectual property rights in India, the men in khaki put up posters featuring Bachchan in a Naxalite-hit block, Adhaura, urging tribal youths to join the social mainstream with the words: “Gyan hi sab kuchh hai, gyan se hi safalta prapt ki ja sakti hai (Knowledge is everything; one can succeed through wisdom only)”. The words were used by the megastar to begin Kaun Banega Crorepati 5.

On Saturday, the 70-year-old actor (@SrBachchan) tweeted: “Just read news about my photograph being used by Bihar Police...this is illegal, no consent taken or given, lawyers in action now.” His Facebook page added: “Bihar Police uses my photograph for the recruitment of forces in their fight against the Maoists ... this is illegal and wrong and defamatory ... they cannot do this without my permission or that of Sony (the channel) ... they have not and they must stop its use immediately….”

Admitting their fault, the police removed the posters on Sunday. “If this has hurt the sentiments of Amitabhji, we have no qualms in apologising for the same,” Kaimur superintendent of police Uma-shankar Sudhanshu said.

The posters — put up just 10 days ago — became quite popular as a large number of disgruntled youths from Adhaura block had joined a government training camp to offer them physical training and education free of cost. “We have been running the educational programme — under the Union government’s integrated action plan — since last year and used pictures and words of personalities like Mahatma Gandhi and Subhash Chandra Bose to motivate the youths,” he added.

Sudhanshu said at least 20 of the trained youths among 170 have either got jobs or been selected by police organisations across the country. Recently, 17 such youths were picked up by the Indo-Tibetan Border Police. Director-general of police Abhayanand said the security personnel had no commercial intention by using Amitabh Bachchan’s picture in the posters. “It was done purely in public interest,” he said.

The district police officials also planned to select 30 youths as “Adhaura 30” on the pattern of “Super 30” from among hundreds of them to educate them properly and enable them to excel in competitive examinations.

A senior police officer said it had become a challenge for them to ensure that “Adhaura 30” did not end up being “adhura” (incomplete) in absence of inspirational words of Bachchan.