Richard Gere faces Indian arrest warrant

Thursday, April 26, 2007

A court in Jaipur, in Rajasthan state, has issued an arrest warrant for Hollywood actor Richard Gere after he kissed Bollywood star and Celebrity Big Brother winner Shilpa Shetty in public.

Gere, 57, kissed Shetty, 31, several times on the cheek at an AIDS awareness celebrity benefit in Delhi earlier this month.

A local lawyer filed the complaint - calling the gesture an "obscene act". Public displays of affection are still largely taboo in India, and protestors in Mumbai set fire to effigies of Gere following the incident. Under Indian law, a person convicted of public obscenity faces up to three months in prison, a fine or both.

Gere, the handsome star of such films as Chicago and Pretty Woman, is a Buddhist and travels to India frequently to visit the Dalai Lama, who lives in exile in the north of the country. It was not immediately clear how the warrant could affect Gere.

Shetty, who found fame outside India as the winner of Celebrity Big Brother in the UK, has also been asked to appear before the court.

But her spokesman, Dale Bhagwager, said the actress had not received any court order or summons and was currently away visiting temples. He said Shetty had not done anything wrong.

"What is there to comment? They were three innocent, natural cute pecks on the cheek," said Mr Bhagwager.

"What can one say, when three pecks can be made into an issue in the land of the Kama Sutra? People should concentrate on the bigger issue of Aids, rather than this."

Photographs of the "obscene act" made the front page of newspapers across India.