Bollywood's Rai targeted in new Indian kissing row
(AFP)
2007-04-29 18:43
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PATNA, India - Bollywood megastar Aishwarya Rai has been summoned to explain an "obscene" kissing scene, Indian officials said Saturday, just days after a similar row engulfed Hollywood's Richard Gere.
Abhishek Bachchan(L) and Aishwarya Rai greet the crowd following a visit to The Lord Venkatesh Wara Temple
at Tirupati, some 550 kms south of Hyderabad, 22 April 2007.[AP]
Rai, who married into the Indian film industry's most famous family last week, was ordered to appear before a district court over a scene in which she is kissed lightly on the cheek.
Her "Dhoom-II" co-star Hrithik Roshan and the owners of a cinema which screened the action film have also been summoned to Muzaffarpur court in the eastern state of Bihar on May 30.
"The court also sent notices to the Bihar government for allowing screening of the film despite its 'obscene' content," a court official said.
He said the judge handed out the orders after a lawyer argued the film "offended public sensibility."
The 33-year-old Rai, who was crowned Miss World in 1994 and married Bollywood heart-throb Abhishek Bachchan last week, has not responded to the court order, government officials said in the state capital Patna.
The summons came after a district court in another state issued arrest warrants for Gere and Indian actress Shilpa Shetty, whom he kissed enthusiastically at an HIV/ AIDS awareness show this month in New Delhi.
The incident triggered a public storm in India, known for its chaste public behaviour despite Bollywood's sexually suggestive song-and-dance routines.
Radical Hindus burned effigies of the 57-year-old Gere in India's entertainment hub Mumbai and organised street rallies in several cities.
The 31-year-old Shetty -- winner of Britain's Celebrity Big Brother reality show this year -- appealed for calm after the kissing incident.
Gere later offered a "sincere apology" for any offence he caused.
"What is most important to me is that my intentions as an HIV/AIDS advocate be made clear and my friends in India understand it has never been nor could it ever be, my intention to offend you," he said in a statement.
"If that has happened, of course it is easy for me to offer a sincere apology," Gere said.
In both cases the celebrities are accused of indulging in "obscene acts" which carries a penalty of three months imprisonment, a fine or both.
Public acts of endearment are banned in India under the British-era Obscenity Act.
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