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‘Peepli Live’ co-director Farooqui found guilty of raping US woman
New Delhi:A court here on Saturday held Mahmood Farooqui, the co-director of the 2010 Hindi film “Peepli Live”, guilty of raping an American woman.
Additional Sessions Judge Sanjiv Jain convicted Farooqui for rape and fixed August 2 for hearing arguments on quantum of sentence.
Farooqui, who is out on bail, was present in the courtroom with his wife, film director and screenwriter Anusha Rizvi, and his friends when the judgment was pronounced.
The court also ordered Farooqui be taken into custody.
Farooqui was accused of raping a 35-year-old woman from Columbia University who was in India for research on her doctoral thesis.
The woman who moved to Delhi in June 2014 was looking for contacts for her work in Gorakhpur and through one of her common friends, she came in contact with Farooqui.
The incident dates back to March 28, 2015 when Farooqui invited her for dinner at his house.
According to the polish chargesheet, the woman, who reached his house at 9 p.m., found Farooqui was very intoxicated, and he asked her to go in the other room which was his office.
After 20 minutes, she left the office room to smoke on the porch when he told her to come in and sit down, it said. After talking with her for a while, he suddenly kissed her and forced himself on her, the prosecution said, adding that the woman was scared after the incident.
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.
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What monkey fled with a bag containing evidence in it: Read full story
The court, generally, considers a person who commit a crime and the one who destroys the evidence, as criminals in the eyes of law. But what if an animal destroys the evidence of a crime committed by a human.
In a peculiar incident in Rajasthan, a monkey fled away with the evidence collected by the police in a murder case. The stolen evidence included the murder weapon (a blood-stained knife).
The incident came to light when the police appeared before the court and they had to provide the evidence in the hearing.
The hearing was about the crime which took place in September 2016, in which a person named Shashikant Sharma died at a primary health center under Chandwaji police station. After the body was found, the deceased’s relatives blocked the Jaipur-Delhi highway, demanding an inquiry into the matter.
Following the investigation, the police had arrested Rahul Kandera and Mohanlal Kandera, residents of Chandwaji in relation to the murder. But, when the time came to produce the evidence related to the case, it was found that the police had no evidence with them because a monkey had stolen it from them.
In the court, the police said that the knife, which was the primary evidence, was also taken by the monkey. The cops informed that the evidence of the case was kept in a bag, which was being taken to the court.
The evidence bag contained the knife and 15 other important evidences. However, due to the lack of space in the malkhana, a bag full of evidence was kept under a tree, which led to the incident.