Shilpa held over Gere kiss

Big Brother star Shilpa Shetty is still feeling the effects of a kiss from Hollywood star Richard Gere five months ago.

The actress was held today by immigration officials at Mumbai airport who said she was still wanted for obscenity charges brought in the wake of the public kiss.

Shilpa was in tears after being stopped while on her way to Berlin where the musical Miss Bollywood opens this weekend, said her spokesman Dale Bhagwagar.

Gere publicly kissed Shetty in April at an AIDS awareness event in India, sparking an outcry among conservative hard-line Hindus, who claimed they had violated the country’s strict anti-obscenity laws.

A regional court issued arrest warrants against Gere and barred Shetty from leaving the country. The order was overturned by the Supreme Court.

But the Supreme Court ruling did not show up in the immigration department computer system, Mr Bhagwagar said.

“She called me in the middle of the night and was in tears,” he said, adding Shilpa was finally permitted to join her dance troupe after prolonged questioning.

“I can understand something like this if I’d committed a criminal offence. But what was my offence, when I’m just an actor, going to perform a musical on foreign land,” she said.

Shortly after the row erupted, Gere, 57, apologised for any offence but also said the whole controversy was manufactured by a small hard-line political party.

Gere is a frequent visitor to India, promoting health issues and the cause of Tibetan exiles, tens of thousands of whom live in India.