Allahabad, actor Amitabh Bachchan's hometown, witnessed a mass protest on Friday against the screening of the Hindi movie "Nishabd", which focuses on the love of a 60-year-old man (Bachchan) and an 18-year-old girl (Jia Khan).

Protestors raised anti- Bachchan slogans and mangled posters of the movie.

"The release of Nishabd on the soil of Prayag can't be tolerated. Through this film, Amitabh Bachchan is propagating western culture in our youth, which is disgusting. We will not let the movie hit the halls. Indeed, Amitabh Bachchan should take a voluntarily retirement from film industry," said Mukund Tiwari, a local legislator.

"Nishabd" is said to be based on "Lolita", the 1955 best seller novel authored by Vladimir Nabokov. It is directed and produced by Ram Gopal Verma and reportedly, exhibits a high voltage sensual drama, much contrary to conventional Indian social norms. Both Verma and Bachchan have denied that the movie is a take off on "Lolita".

The self-proclaimed protectors of Indian ethos demanded a nation-wide ban on the screening of the film, failing which they warned that their protest might be aggravated.

Bachchan has acted in over 130 films; most of them lapped up by the audience. As a family friend of the Nehru-Gandhi's family, he had fought and won an election from Allahabad in 1984.

However, he later branded politics as 'cesspool' and parted ways with Sonia Gandhi. He kept himself away from political arena for a couple of years. Of late, Bachchan has emerged as the indirect promoter of the Samajwadi Party (SP), though he denies reports of getting back into politics. His wife and actress Jaya Bachchan is a Rajya Sabha member from Uttar Pradesh.