Kisses from Richard Gere plunge Shilpa Shetty into India row

Crowds burned posters of the Celebrity Big Brother winner and the American actor in protest at their behaviour.

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Taboo: The couple's embrace goes against all the Hindu conventions

TV news bulletins repeatedly showed Gere, 57, kissing the 31-year-old actress during an Aids awareness rally.

Religious fundamentalists and Hindu nationalists consider any display of public affection taboo.

It is all the worse when the pair in question are unmarried. And a further aggravating factor is that Gere is a non-Hindu foreigner.

The pair had appeared at a press conference in New Delhi as part of a campaign to preach safe sex to truck drivers in India, the country with the world's largest proportion of HIV sufferers.

'No condom, no sex,' Gere shouted in Hindi to thousands of truckers who roared his words back in unison at a dusty fairground.

They whooped and whistled as Gere swooped on Miss Shetty to kiss her on her hand and cheek. Nationally, however, the reaction was of violent disapproval.

In Mumbai, where she was filming, Miss Shetty said the reaction to the kiss made India look 'regressive'.

Defender: Shilpa defends actor Richard Gere's actions and dismissed the reaction as the work of a 'lunatic fringe'

In a live interview, from Mumbai, with GMTV's Penny Smith. The Bollywood star defended actor Richard Gere for kissing her repeatedly and said: "Oh my God, so much has been blown out of proportion."

Shetty told GMTV presenter Penny Smith: "I think too much has been made out of something that was really quite unimportant.

"He was trying to strike his dance pose from Shall We Dance, his previous movie, and he kind of, you know, just bent over me and he kissed me on the cheeks - I mean, that was it!

"Then they kept playing and replaying it on the channels and people didn't even know why we were there, and that kind of saddened me and infuriated me.

"People never even talked about the issues."

She said she held a press conference in India after the protests took place to explain what happened, and she claimed the "sensible media" now realised what they had done.

When asked by Smith if she was worried, Shetty said she was more concerned for Gere because "he's someone who doesn't belong to my country", and she hoped the Indian public would respect the work he has done there for HIV and Aids.

She added: "We must stand up and appreciate that and not digress from the main issue."