Co-director of Peepli Live guilty of rape

A city court on Saturday convicted Mahmood Farooqui, the co-director of Bollywood movie Peepli Live, of raping of a 30-year-old American research scholar from Columbia University.

“The prosecution has proved its case beyond reasonable doubt,” additional sessions judge Sanjiv Jain noted while holding Farooqui guilty of offence punishable under Section 376 (punishment of rape) of the IPC. The court has now fixed August 2 to hear the argument on quantum of sentence. Farooqui, who was on bail, was immediately taken into custody after the verdict.

The offence of rape entails a minimum of seven years rigorous jail and a maximum of imprisonment for life.

The woman, in her complaint, had alleged that Farooqui was drunk when he raped her at his house where she had gone to get his help for her research work last year.

The police had on June 19, 2015, lodged the FIR against Farooqui on the woman’s complaint after which he was arrested.

The court has relied on the testimony of the prosecutrix. While framing the charges against the accused, the court had earlier noted, “On March 28, at the residence of the accused in Sukhdev Vihar in South Delhi, you (Farooqui) committed rape of the prosecutrix in the manner as defined under Section 375, punishable under Section 376 of the Indian Penal Code.”

During the trial Farooqui had denied the allegations, saying he was falsely implicated. The victim had deposed that after the alleged rape incident around nine emails were exchanged between her and Farooqui in which he had expressed his apology.

On June 29, a chargesheet was filed against Farooqui alleging that he had raped the research scholar from Colombia University at his house in south Delhi on March 28.