`Peepli' co-director convicted of raping US research scholar

NEW DELHI: Bollywood filmmaker Mahmood Farooqui was held guilty by a trial court on Saturday of raping a 30-year-old American woman at his south Delhi house last year.

The 38-year-old `Peepli Live' co-director, who was on bail, was taken into custody after additional sessions judge Sanjiv Jain convicted him of the offence under section 376 of IPC.

The court is believed to have relied on the testimony of the woman, a research scholar of Columbia University, and other prosecution witnesses. It also took into account a common friend's statement, emails she exchanged with Farooqui and other friends, soon after the alleged incident. The woman was in the city to work on her doctoral thesis when the incident took place.

Arguments on the quantum of sentence against Farooqui, who had come to court along with his wife Anusha Rizvi, and some other friends, will be heard on August 2. Farooqui can be handed a punishment ranging from seven years to life imprisonment. The testimony of Danish Hussain -he is said to have a two-decade long friendship with Farooqui -as a prosecution witness went against Farooqui. It was Hussain who had introduced Farooqui to the complainant. The incident allegedly took place on March 28 at Farooqui's Sukhdev Vihar residence when his wife was not at home.

Hussain, 44, had told the court that the complainant had informed him about the sexual assault immediately after the incident. According to the prosecution, Hussain had received whatsapp messages from the woman immediately after the incident when she was at Farooqui's house and she had also called him from the taxi to share her trauma. Hussain had also told the court that he had received emails from the complainant later, containing forwarded emails exchanged between her and the accused, which even included mails from Farooqui's wife. The prosecution had claimed that both Farooqui and Rizwi had apologised to the woman for the incident.

Hussain's testimony was challenged by Farooqui who had said that the messages, which were sent immediately after the alleged assault when she was still at Farooqui's house, show the woman discussing “trivial things“ and not even mentioning anything about the alleged assault. “In these messages, the woman has discussed trivial things on how she was upset for not going to a wedding despite being dressed for it. This is unnatural for someone who says she was traumatised by the incident,“ Farooqui's lawyer, Nitya Ramakrishnan, had told the court.

Seeking Farooqui's conviction, the prosecution had placed heavy reliance on the mails sent by the woman to Farooqui and her academic supervisor in which police said that she had elaborated on the nature of sexual assault she suffered and how the incident shook her. The content of the mails exchanged between Farooqui and the woman were also questioned by the defence which had claimed in those mails, the woman had expressed her love and fondness for Farooqui. The defence had argued that Farooqui was falsely implicated after refusing overtures from the woman.

According to the prosecution, the woman “did not resist“ the sexual assault as she feared being killed like the victim of the December 16 gangrape. The woman's counsel had said that the woman initially resisted the attack but after Farooqui applied force, she froze. The testimony of another prosecution witness Ashish Singh--who had attended the party at Farooqui's residence that day-- which the defence was hoping to go in its favour seems to have been discredited by the court. Singh, who was examined twice in court, had said that he was present at Farooqui's house at the time- which was alleged to be the time of the incident.

Additional Public Prosecutor AT Ansari and the woman's lawyer Vrinda Grover welcomed the verdict. Ansari said that conviction in such cases reinforces the faith of foreign nationals in Indian administration sytem while Grover said, “It's a very important verdict because the court has sent a clear signal that it doesn't hsistate to convict any person who has committed the offence of rape, regardless of their high-profile status.“

The defence is likely to file an appeal against the verdict in the Delhi High Court.

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