They hugged each other, walked hand-in-hand, smiled for the cameras and said: “We are together.”

A day after a Mumbai tabloid splashed reports that their two-and-a-half-month marriage was on the rocks, Rahul Mahajan and his wife Shweta sauntered out of Delhi airport to prove all was fine.

Rahul had arrived from Mumbai and Shweta from Dehra Dun. The couple later went out for a “romantic candlelight dinner” at Oriental Express, a restaurant in the capital’s Taj Palace hotel.

“This is the restaurant where my father had brought me 11 years ago on my first visit to a big hotel,” Rahul said.

Rahul said he would not initiate any legal action against the Mumbai newspaper that published reports that he often beat up his wife. Shweta had denied the allegations as “baseless”.

“There is freedom of speech but this is our private matter. The media should respect our privacy,” Rahul said.