Its sad Gere had to apologize: Shilpa publicist

New Delhi, Apr 28: Regretting that actor Richard Gere had to tender an apology over an unnecessary controversy over a few "pecks on the cheek" of Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty during an event in Delhi, her publicist expressed dismay that such an innocuous gesture caused such an uproar especially in ''the land of Kamasutra''.

''It is surprising that three pecks on Shilpa Shetty's cheeks can cause such an uproar especially in the land of Kamasutra,''the Shetty's publicist Dale Bhagwagar today said in his reaction to Gere's apology in the media yesterday.

''It is sad that Gere had to apologize for no fault of his,'' Bhagwagar said.

''All he had done was enacted a scene from his film 'Shall We Dance' to entertain the truckers at the AIDS awareness event. It was a natural cute and loving impromptu gesture by Gere which was blown out of proportion due to improper projection by the gossip-hungry television media,''he said.

Maintaining that it was an irrelevant controversy, he said that Shilpa was neither hurt nor humiliated by Gere's gesture.

Gere's apology came a day after a lower court in Rajasthan issued an arrest warrant against the Hollywood actor and a summon against actress Shilpa Shetty for the kissing controversy, in response to a petition by advocate Poonam Chand Bhandari who had filed a complaint on April 17 at SJM-4, stating that Gere's forced kiss on Shilpa in public, amounted to an obscene act.

Saying that Shilpa did not even resist the act, Bhandari demanded that these should be fined or jailed under Section 294 of the Indian Penal Code. He also said the television channel had repeatedly telecast the kiss, causing further annoyance.

Reacting to the summons and an alleged statement by a police official in Jaipur that "if proven guilty in the case filed against them by two local lawyers, Gere and Shetty could be sentenced to six years imprisonment", Bhagwagar said,''it is amateur and frivolous on the part of a government official to state that someone can get jailed for pecks on the cheeks.

If that is the case, more than half the country will have to be jailed.''

UNI