NEW DELHI:Co-director and producer Mahmood Farooqui of much-talked about movie Peepli Live was on Sunday arrested here for allegedly raping a US-based Indian-origin research scholar of Columbia University.
The victim has alleged that she was raped by Farooqui in a rented accommodation in Sukhdev Vihar, South Delhi. Farooqui has been sent to 14-day judicial custody. Police said the victim had come to India for her research work on Baba Gorakhnath at Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh.
The 30-year-old victim came to New Friends Colony police station on Friday along with a US embassy official and filed a complaint of sexual assault against Farooqui. In her complaint, she alleged that Farooqui raped her in March this year during a party at his rented accommodation in Sukhdev Vihar. “She alleged that after the party, which was attended by two other persons, one of them a journalist, Farooqui urged her to stay back till his wife returned,” said a police officer, adding the victim stayed after others left during which Farooqui allegedly sexually assaulted her.
After her medical examination, Farooqui was immediately called for questioning and arrested on Saturday. Police said the victim had in 2014 met Farooqui in Varanasi through a common friend in connection with her research on Baba Gorakhnath.
Farooqui helped her in gathering information for her research and the two became friends, meeting often. On March 26 this year, she met him in the house where she was allegedly raped by him.
A few minutes after the incident, Farooqui’s wife Anusha Rizvi, who co-directed Peepli Live with him, reached the house but the victim left immediately without discussing it with anyone. She went to her rented accommodation in Jungpura and returned to the US in April. “She came back now and filed the complaint on which we took action,” said the officer. Anusha Rizvi put out a statement, denying the allegations. “The complaint is manipulated and false. We don’t want to make any further comments because the case is under investigation,” she said in the statement.
