MAM
Caught in the act Mumbai billboard snaps shut on child abuse offenders
MUMBAI: Mumbai commuters got more than just traffic for company this week, they got a stark reminder that the law is watching. In a city where billboards usually sell dreams, one hoarding on the Santacruz–Chembur Link Road (SCLR) has delivered a jolt of reality with a message that lands like a warning shot: “Kisi bhi bacche ko galat tareeke se chhua toh #POCSOPakadLega.”
At a time when conversations around child safety desperately need amplification, Laqshya Media Group, in collaboration with child protection non-profit Arpan, has transformed one of Mumbai’s busiest corridors into a bold stage for social accountability. As part of Child Safety Week and Arpan’s seventh-edition campaign under the banner #POCSOPakadLega, the agencies installed a giant handcuff-themed billboard not a visual gimmick, but a towering symbol of the consequences awaiting child sexual abuse offenders.
The location was chosen with precision. SCLR connects the Western and Eastern Express Highways and registers over one lakh impressions daily, making it one of the city’s most strategic stretches for mass visibility and long dwell time. For thousands of passing motorists, the message becomes unmissable, urgent, and impossible to scroll past.
The installation itself is a feat of fabrication: an oversized, movable handcuff motif engineered to sit securely on the roadside without obstructing traffic. Behind the scenes, it required weeks of structural planning, permissions, and safety checks all to ensure that the campaign brought maximum impact with zero disruption.
Adding emotional heft to the visual was the presence of Vidya Balan, one of India’s most acclaimed actors and Arpan’s Goodwill Ambassador whose image featured across hoardings and digital collateral, lending credibility and gravitas to the cause.
“At a time when posters aren’t enough, we wanted a real-world activation,” said Laqshya Media Group director & CEO Atul Shrivastava. “By turning SCLR into a platform for #POCSOPakadLega, we aimed to make every commuter a witness to this message. Child safety is everyone’s responsibility and offenders will face the law.”
For Arpan, the campaign is part of a long-running effort to dismantle silence around child sexual abuse and bring conversations into public spaces. “Now in its 7th year, Child Safety Week continues to break taboo and encourage communities to speak out,” said Arpan founder & CEO Pooja Taparia. “With its impactful OOH presence, the campaign reached the masses exactly as we intended. Laqshya’s partnership has been crucial in amplifying that reach.”
Laqshya Media Group’s execution underscores a growing trend in out-of-home advertising: turning city infrastructure into vessels of social messaging. Instead of passive visuals, the handcuff activation converts public space into public responsibility, a reminder that awareness isn’t just seen; it is felt.
As the campaign’s BTS video continues to circulate online, the installation stands guard over SCLR, delivering its message repeatedly, relentlessly, and with the full force of the law behind it.
AD Agencies
Abhay Duggal joins JioStar as director of Hindi GEC ad sales
The streaming giant brings in a seasoned revenue hand as the battle for Hindi television advertising heats up
MUMBAI: Abhay Duggal has a new desk, and JioStar has a new weapon. The media and entertainment veteran has joined JioStar as director of entertainment ad sales for Hindi general entertainment channels, adding 17 years of hard-won revenue experience to one of India’s most powerful broadcasting operations.
Duggal is no stranger to big portfolios or bruising markets. Before joining JioStar, he spent a brief stint at Republic World as deputy general manager and north regional head for ad sales. Before that, he put in three years at Enterr10 Television, where he ran the north region for Dangal TV and Dangal 2, two of India’s leading free-to-air Hindi channels. The north alone accounted for more than 50 per cent of total channel revenue on his watch, a number that tends to get attention in any sales meeting.
His longest stint was at Zee Entertainment Enterprises, where he spent over six years rising to associate director of sales. There he commanded the Hindi movies cluster across seven channels, owned more than half of north India’s revenue across flagship properties including Zee TV and &TV, and closed marquee sponsorships across the Indian Premier League, Zee Rishtey Awards and Dance India Dance. He also handled monetisation for the English movies and entertainment cluster and the global news channel WION, a portfolio that would stretch most sales teams twice his size.
Earlier in his career Duggal closed what was then a Rs 3 crore single deal at Reliance Broadcast Network, one of the largest in Indian radio at the time, before that he helped launch and monetise JAINHITS, India’s first HITS-based cable and satellite platform.
His edge, by his own account, lies in marrying data and instinct: translating audience trends, inventory signals and client demands into long-term partnerships built on cost-per-rating-point discipline rather than short-term deal chasing. In a media landscape being reshaped by streaming, fragmented attention and AI-driven advertising, that kind of rigour is increasingly rare and increasingly valuable.
JioStar, which blends the scale of Reliance’s Jio platform with the content firepower of Star, is doubling down on its advertising business at precisely the moment the Hindi GEC market is getting more competitive. Bringing in someone who has spent nearly two decades doing exactly this, across some of India’s most watched channels, is a pointed statement of intent. Duggal has spent his career turning audiences into revenue. JioStar is clearly betting he can do it again, and bigger.
