A Delhi court today sentenced Peepli Live co-director Mahmood Farooqui to seven years in jail for raping an American woman.
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However, Farooqui’s lawyer Nitya Ramakrishnan argued that to seek life imprisonment, the police must produce evidence of special “aggravating circumstances”.
The court, while reserving the date for pronouncing the punishment, said that the crime committed by the convict has disgraced the image of India in front of the world. The offence of rape entailed a minimum of seven years rigorous jail and a maximum of imprisonment for life. “The court must keep in mind that there was an additional vulnerability of the woman in a foreign country and it brings disrepute to our country, besides traumatizing the victim”, the victims counsel Vrinda Grover said during the argument.
But high levels of sexual violence against women continue.
The incident happened on March 28, 2015.
During the trial that began on September 9, the woman alleged that after raping her, Farooqui had apologised in several emails that he wrote to her. When the scholar reached the house she found him under the influence of alcohol and he was crying.
The American woman first met the director in Varanasi when she went to him for deets on Baba Gorakhnath, her research subject.
The victim, then aged 35, had travelled to India to seek Farooqui´s assistance with her research when the assault took place at his home in an upscale area of the capital.
The woman returned to the U.S. shortly after the incident but came back to report the matter to police. She had returned to the USA after the incident, but had later approached the Delhi Police through diplomatic channels and lodged a formal complaint on June 19.
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During the trial, the American researcher stood by her complaint and alleged that Farooqui had raped her, while he denied the allegations, and claimed he was falsely implicated.
