Safiq Chadka was 13 when he started chewing a blend of tobacco and spices. A few years later, doctors pared off his tongue in order to stop the cancer which was spreading through his mouth.

"I suppose that namely that granular mixture I chewed was the cause of cancer. I even ignored a bump that was growing in my mouth," Chadka said.

Currently Chadka is one of about 200,000 Indians with a smoking-related cancer registered this year.

It was found out that India has the greatest number of oral cases in the world. Sales of chewing tobacco constituted 210.3 billion rupees ($4.6 billion) in 2004 and it was stated that by 2014 this figure will double.

"As long as people will experiment this product, they will become slaves of tobacco industry," stated Chaturvedi, who works at the Asia’s largest cancer treatment center.

In India were estimated more than 70,000 cases of cancers of the mouth in 2008, the largest indicator in the world, leaving behind U.S. with the 23,000 cases, according to data presented by the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer.

"I have seen many children chewing gutka (chewing tobacco in India) and who lately got cancer," said Chaturvedi.

"Gutka may be obtained across India in bright pouches, and once opened the granular mixture emits a sweet-scented smell. Inside the mouth, it has a gravel consistence and produces a tingling sensation on the tongue. It is namely the scraping of the mouth’s lining which can speed the effect of nicotine and cancer-causing chemicals," said Dhirendra Sinha, the representative of WHO’s New Delhi office.

Street vendors are always present around schools, thus violating Indian law, which bans the sale of tobacco products within 100 yards of educational institutions.

"I am trying to quit this habit, but it is too difficult, tacking into account all these shops around our school," said Javeed Shaikh, who started chewing gutka three years ago and currently consumes two or three packets per day.

The mixture of tobacco and areca nut makes gutka, very addictive. Areca nut is the most frequently used psychoactive substance in the world, after tobacco, alcohol and caffeine, according to the WHO.

A chemical analysis of gutka conducted in 2008, demonstrated that it contains arsenic, chromium, lead, nickel and other tobacco- related nitrosamines, all of which are know as carcinogens.

A manufacturer of gutka, Rajendra Malu stated that he sold more than 250 million packets last year. He doesn’t believe that gutka may lead to cancer.

"I have been chewing gutka for the last 37 years and I don’t have any disease," he said.

Gutka is mostly used in India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, but is started to be used in other countries due to migration, according to the International Agency for Research on Cancer.