Pune: Actor and chairperson of the Central Board for Film Certification, Sharmila Tagore, was attacked with paper and threatened by a mob during the inaugural ceremony of the 6th Pune International Film Festival on Thursday evening.

Minutes before Sharmila was scheduled to be honoured with a Lifetime Achievement Award, the group of men, who were supporters of a Dalit organisation called Lashkar-e-Bhima started throwing paper at the actress and ransacked the venue, which was packed with about 800 people.

Shammi Kapoor, Nana Patekar, Anurag Kashyap and Suresh Kalmadi were also onstage when the attack took place.

They even dropped a light on the crowd as they chanted protests against Sharmila.

All the protesters were arrested and are currently under police custody.

No one at the venue could confirm the reason behind the unrest.

However, a few months back Sharmila had been questioned for clearing the Madhuri Dixit-starrer Aaja Nachle. One of the film's song's lyrics had apparently hurt the sentiments of the Dalit community and certain Dalit groups had asked for the film to be banned.