Jolie’s guards held, freed

MUMBAI:

Three of Angelina Jolie’s bodyguards were arrested by Indian police on November 17 and then freed on bail following a scuffle with parents at a Mumbai Islamic school during a movie shoot, police and lawyers said.

Jolie, accompanied by her partner Brad Pitt and their three children, is in India for a month to film scenes for A Mighty Heart, a film about US journalist Daniel Pearl’s abduction and murder by Islamic militants in Pakistan in 2002.

“The three bodyguards were granted bail. The case appears to be in cold storage now, unless the police decide to chargesheet them later,” Mahesh Jethmalani, a lawyer who represented the bodyguards, told AFP. Bail for each of the bodyguards was set at Rs 25,000 ($555).

The three bodyguards for Jolie were arrested early on Friday from their hotel, deputy police commissioner Brijesh Singh said. Singh said the bodyguards were arrested on charges of “threatening” and “insult to religion” after parents filed a formal complaint with police on Thursday.

Jolie had late Thursday been stuck at the private Anjuman-i-Islam school when angry parents accused her bodyguards of shoving their children around. The NTDV network showed footage of the skirmish, where a man said one of Jolie’s bodyguards called a man in the crowd outside the school a “bloody Indian” and made a gesture miming the slitting of a throat.