Warrants against Gere, Shilpa

ON THE ACT: Organisers of Delhi AIDS event described the dance-and-kiss spoof as unplanned act.

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New Delhi: The infamous kiss between Hollywood star Richard Gere and actress Shilpa Shetty at a public function in Delhi earlier this month has landed the two in legal trouble.

A Jaipur court on Thursday issued arrest warrants against the duo for their public kiss, which had evoked strong protests in several cities.

Jaipur city Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate Dinesh Gupta issued the warrants on the basis of a complaint filed by Jaipur resident Poonam Chand Bhandari.

The controversial incident, which the organisers later described as an unplanned and harmless dance-and-kiss spoof, took place at an AIDS event organised by philanthropist Parmeshwar Godrej.

During the function, Gere jokingly grabbed Shilpa and planted several kisses on her cheek, to howls of appreciation from an audience, which mainly comprised lorry drivers.

Parmeshwar Godrej herself tried to play down the episode, saying the focus on the Shetty-Gere episode had two very important fallouts.

Parmeshwar and "good friend" Gere have been successfully working on such causes in India for a while now.

“It saddens me to see that all the effort and the purpose put up for such a cause went unnoticed because of the outburst. It has detracted from and undermined the value and success of the event, which was concerned with creating AIDS awareness and promoting AIDS prevention among truck drivers, a segment of society highly vulnerable to the dreaded disease," she said.

Members of the Shiv Sena and other Hindu nationalist groups, however, objected to the episode and burnt effigies of Gere on the streets of Varanasi, Bhopal, Kanpur, Indore, Delhi and Mumbai.

They also burnt effigies of Gere and Shetty to give vent to their anger over the actor's act on stage at the programme in Delhi, calling it indecent behaviour.

The protesters demanded that Gere leave the country immediately or apologise for his 'indecent conduct'.

While the protesters saw the act as an outrage against Shetty's modesty and Indian culture, Shetty dismissed the outrage as an 'over-reaction' that made India look silly.

According to Parmeshwar Godrej, the hue and cry that typically followed the incident diverted attention from the wonderful service that the Hollywood actor has been rendering. "Gere has been a committed, undaunted and tireless worker for the cause and his efforts have been acknowledged worldwide," she said.