Rautela’s spokesperson said people are careful about religious sensitivities in India.

After their dismay over the parody of Christ’s Last Supper, Mumbai’s Roman Catholic community has expressed outrage over a dress with motifs of Mother Mary recently worn by actor Urvashi Rautela during her visit to Paris to watch the Games.

The group Watchdog Foundation has written to the state government, including the chief secretary and principal secretary (home) seeking sanction to prosecute the actor for hurting their religious sentiments. Rautela, whose film was released last week, said she is sorry for the faux pas and has asked the Catholic community to forgive her. “We ask for forgiveness; we are really sorry,” said her spokesperson. “The dress was made in Paris and was given to her by the designer. We had no idea that the images on the dress were that of Mother Mary. It was a mistake. We came to know that later. What could we do?”

The actor has posted reels and photographs of herself in that particular dress on her social media pages, announcing that she is the ‘first Indian actress to be officially invited to Paris Olympics 2014’. Catholics in Mumbai said they were anguished and outraged and their religious sentiments were hurt.

“This pertains to the actions of Indian actress and model Urvashi Rautela. Recently, during her stay in Paris, Urvashi Rautela was seen exiting Hotel Montaigne wearing a skirt that depicted images of Mother Mary. This act, in the guise of fashion, is a blatant disregard for the religious sentiments of Christians and is highly offensive. Such actions cannot be condoned under the pretext of art or fashion,” said the letter from Watchdog Foundation.

Section 295 of the old Indian Penal Code looks at offences relating to “insult of religion”. However, section 196 of the old Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) requires the prior sanction of the government before starting the prosecution procedure. “The new BNS law has similar procedure and in the past the government has sanctioned prosecution in cases where models wore dresses with religious motifs,” said advocate Godfrey Pimenta of the Watchdog Foundation.

The complaint said that the latest incident comes closely on the heels of the Last Supper controversy during the Olympics, which had already caused significant distress within the Christian community.

“The continuous disregard for our religious symbols is deeply troubling and cannot be ignored. We hereby demand the immediate arrest of Urvashi Rautela under the sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita for hurting the religious sentiments of the Christian community. It is imperative that such actions are not repeated and that those responsible are held accountable to prevent further denigration of our religious beliefs,” said the letter.

Rautela’s spokesperson said people are careful about religious sensitivities in India. “We know what we can and what we cannot do, but this is not so in foreign countries. In all probability, the dress maker is a Catholic,” the spokesperson added. “We ask for forgiveness. We are sorry.”