On 15 April 2007, Richard Gere kissed Shilpa Shetty on the cheek several times in just during AIDS awareness event.The pair were appearing at a press conference in New Delhi as part of a campaign to preach safe sex to truck drivers in India and promote AIDS awareness. The kiss consider an attack on India's cultural and moral values, prompted protesters-alleged members of the extremist Hindu group Shiv Sena- to beat burning effigies of Gere with sticks. Other set fire to glamour shots of Shilpa. People demand an apology from her and threatened to ban her movies in the state. Shive sena leaders denied involvement in the protests but Shiv Sena member of parlament Sanjay Raut observed that the protests are just a manifestation of the anger of the general public and that there was nothing wrong with expressing contempt at such an act.
Similar protests broke out in other cities including varanasi, Hindusm's holiest city, and the northern town of Meerut, where crowds of hundreds of thousand chanted ''Down with Shilpa Shetty'' The STAR news office was also attacked. The protests did not take any violent turn and the situation was quickly brought under control with some activists being detained.
