Israelis' strip near holy city angers India

Israeli women have caused a scandal in Rajasthan by performing an impromptu striptease near a Hindu holy city. The women, who were in India for the Desert Queen Rally, a competitive event for Israeli women rally drivers, were at a party to celebrate the end of the event.

Israeli women have caused a scandal in Rajasthan by performing an impromptu striptease near a Hindu holy city. The women, who were in India for the Desert Queen Rally, a competitive event for Israeli women rally drivers, were at a party to celebrate the end of the event.

Residents were quoted in the Indian press as claiming the women "got drunk, threw their clothes on the stage and danced naked in the moonlight".

The party was being held just three miles outside Pushkar, a Hindu pilgrimage centre where the sale of alcohol, meat and even eggs is forbidden. But religious groups allege that meat and alcohol were served.

The Indian organisers of the party claim the striptease came about during a revue the Israeli women put on to re-enact scenes from village life they had witnessed. While using a sari cloth as a makeshift purdah screen as Rajasthani women do to hide behind while bathing, the purdah dropped, revealing the partly undressed women.