The incident happened in April caused uproar across India, where public displays of sex and affection are largely taboo. It led to effigies of Gere, 58, being burned in the streets and protesters shouting, ‘Death to Shilpa Shetty’.

Shetty was released after questioning but only yesterday allowed to fly to Berlin for her Miss Bollywood musical.

It appears that the airport officials did not realise a Supreme Court ruling banning Shetty from leaving India – following the Gere smooch – had been overturned.

Hmmm. Very different from the Westerrn world, isn’t it?

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((ANGRY crowds in several Indian cities burned effigies of Richard Gere yesterday after he swept a popular Bollywood actress, Shilpa Shetty into his arms and kissed her several times during an AIDS-awareness event.

Photographs of Richard Gere embracing Shilpa Shetty and kissing her on the cheek at an HIV/AIDS awareness event in New Delhi were splashed across yesterday’s front pages in India – a country where sex and public displays of affection are largely taboo.

In Mumbai, members of the right-wing Hindu nationalist group Shiv Sena beat burning effigies of  Richard Gere with sticks and set fire to glamorous shots of Shilpa Shetty.

Similar protests broke out in other cities, including Varanasi, Hinduism’s holiest city, and in the northern town of Meerut, where crowds chanted “Down with Shilpa Shetty!”

The two appeared at a press conference in New Delhi yesterday to highlight the HIV/AIDS epidemic among India’s truck drivers.

In front of a cheering crowd, Gere kissed the giggling Shetty on the hand, then kissed her on both cheeks before bending her in a full embrace to kiss her cheek again.))

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