Delhi HC acquits Peepli Live co-director Mahmood Farooqui in US scholar rape case

Peepli Live co-director Mahmood Farooqui, who was sentenced to seven years in jail for raping a US scholar by a lower court, has been acquitted by the Delhi High Court on Monday.

Giving 44-year-old Farooqui benefit of the doubt, the HC has withdrawn the charges of rape against him.

On June 19, 2015, an Indian American woman alleging Farooqui of raping her had filed a police complaint against him.

Following the complaint, he was arrested by the police and produced in a session court in Delhi.

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In the charge sheet filed against him, police told the court that the co-director of Bollywood film Peepli Live had raped research scholar from Columbia University at his Sukhdev Vihar house in Delhi on March 28, 2015.

The lower court convicted him in the case and sentenced to seven years in jail with Rs 50,000 fine.

Farooqui challenged the session court order in the Delhi Court where he got the acquittal on the grounds of benefit of the doubt.