Fundamentalists went crazy and the Pakistani army accused Malik of embarrassing her country after she apparently posed nude for the front cover of FHM India with the initials of the ISI, Pakistan's spy agency written on her bicep.

The actress is adamant she was wearing a bikini top during the shoot but that it had been digitally removed by FHM editors.

"The things I have done in life, I have the guts to stand by. This is my body; this is my life," she told the Guardian. "This is my body, and I will take advantage of it if I want to. And it's a very beautiful body

"But I will not allow any man out there to morph my pictures and put it on the cover, just to sell their magazine. They are gaining. I'm losing."

She vowed not to back down in the face of vilification and death threats.

"This attitude, I'm sorry, is in the society. When they say they have become modern, grown up, that's wrong. They still live in the stone age."

Malik said her mother and siblings understood why she had taken part in the photo shoot but that she has yet to confront her father about it.

In a text message to journalists, Pakistan's military press office said the scandal was "the height of humiliation for Pakistan, done by a Pakistani on Indian soil."