MUMBAI: The Session Court at Sewri in Mumbai on Wednesday sentenced Bollywood actor Shiney Ahuja to a minimum of seven years imprisonment for raping his domestic help.
While delivering the verdict, Judge PM Chouhan has not accepted the maid’s evidence in the court that she was not raped as the judge felt that she had given false evidence.
Shiney broke down in the court after the pronouncement of the verdict and he was taken to jail directly from court. Clad in pink shirt and jeans, the 38-year-old Shiney was accompanied by his wife Anupam Ahuja in the court when the judgement was delivered. An unfazed Anupam later told reporters that her husband was innocent.
Media-persons were not allowed inside the court during the pronouncement of the verdict as the proceedings were in-camera just like during trial time.
In September last year, the maid had backtracked from her allegations that Shiney had raped her at his residence in Mumbai and said the incident had never occurred. The 20-year-old girl told the court that she had filed the complaint against the actor at the behest of the woman who had secured her the job of a maid in Shiney’s residence.
Earlier, in June 2009, the girl had lodged a police complaint alleging that she was raped by the actor at his residence. Shiney was arrested on June 14 and released on bail three months later.
Additional Commissioner of Police Amitabh Gupta, who led the probe, said the convincing evidence police collected had proved the role of the actor in the crime despite the victim turning hostile. The police had gathered the DNA report and the medical report, which confirmed the rape by Shiney. The investigating officials also recorded the statements of 12 witnesses and gathered other documentary evidence.