Bollywood actress Mallika Sherawat tear-gassed, beaten near her Paris residence

Bollywood actress Mallika Sherawat was beaten and robbed by three masked men outside her Paris apartment block, the police said on Thursday.

According to reports, Mallika Sherawat, 40, and her unidentified male partner were tear-gassed and punched when they reached her residential building in the chic 16th arrondissement of Paris at 9:40 pm.

The attack on the actress, whose real name is Reema Lamba, comes a month after reality TV star Kim Kardashian was robbed at gunpoint in a neighbouring flat.

According to Yahoo news, the men were wearing scarves covering their faces and "without saying a word, sprayed their victims with tear gas before punching them".

The attackers then fled, leaving Sherawat in a state of shock. Her partner then called the emergency services.

According to the report, a criminal investigation has been initiated with detectives working on the assumption that it was an attempted robbery.

Sherawat has been quite vocal about the number of attacks on woman in India, including honour killings and gang rapes. Two years ago, while she was promoting her show Bachelorette India, Sherawat was quoted as saying, "When I've experienced that social freedom, when I go back to India, which is so regressive for women, it's depressing. As an independent woman, it's really depressing".

On 3 October, Kim Kardashian was robbed at gunpoint in the French capital. It was reported that a gang of five robbers snatched jewellery worth millions of pounds from her Paris flat.