indecency laws are indecent

Israeli Couple Fined for Kissing in India

(09-21) 09:12 PDT NEW DELHI, India (AP) --

India may be the land of the Kamasutra, the ancient treatise on sex, but public displays of affection remain strictly taboo in the country's hinterlands, as an Israeli couple found out.

They were fined 500 Indian rupees ($11) each for embracing and kissing after getting married in a traditional Hindu ceremony in the northwestern Indian town Pushkar, the Asian Age newspaper reported Wednesday.

The Israeli Embassy in New Delhi confirmed the incident and identified the couple as Alon Orpaz and Tehila Salev, who decided to get married while visiting India. The embassy did not provide additional details.

The Asian Age said priests at Pushkar's Brahma temple were so incensed when the couple smooched as hymns were still being chanted that they filed a police complaint.

A court in Pushkar then charged them with indecency and ordered them to pay the fine or face 10 days in prison, the newspaper reported. The couple decided to pay, it said.

"We will not tolerate any cultural pollution of this sort," the newspaper quoted a priest, Ladoo Ram Sharma, as saying.

Asian Age reported that the priests planned to ask the government to require tourists to be appropriately dressed when visiting the holy town and its temples.

Pushkar, located on the banks of Pushkar Lake, is a popular Hindu pilgrimage spot that's also frequented by foreign tourists, who come for the town's annual cattle fair and camel races.

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