Bollywood actor Kunal Kapoor has used the dying telegram service to urge the government to ban the import and sale of cosmetics that are tested on animals.

The Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd. (BSNL) has decided to discontinue the 160-year-old telegram service July 15.

Kunal did a good deed by sending the telegram to Minister of Health and Family Welfare Ghulam Nabi Azad as part of Humane Society International India's (HSI) Be Cruelty-Free Campaign.

In the telegram, the actor wrote: "Honourable Minister, I am so proud that India has banned the cruel and unnecessary practice of testing cosmetics on live animals. However, if we don't allow such cruelty in our laboratories, we should not allow it on our shop shelves either."

"Please make India a cruelty-free cosmetics zone with an import ban on animal-tested cosmetics," he added.

In June, the Bureau of Indian Standards banned animal testing for cosmetics in India.

Now HSI wants to see the same ethical standard applied to cosmetic imports with a ban on beauty products that have been animal tested elsewhere.

Alokparna Sengupta, HSI India's campaign manager, said: "We are grateful to Kunal Kapoor for standing up for animals in such a unique way. The telegram is being replaced by modern technology, just as the old- fashioned approach of animal testing is being replaced by non-animal science."