Court starts trial in rape case against Mahmood Farooqui

Trial in a case in which Bollywood movie 'Peepli Live' co-director Mahmood Farooqui has been accused of raping an American research scholar today commenced before a city court with the recording of the statement of a police officer.
Assistant sub-inspector (ASI) Ram Singh appeared before Additional Sessions Judge Sanjiv Jain as the first prosecution witness in the case and testified that he had written the FIR on the complaint filed by the American scholar.
During the hearing, the court dropped the names of two students of Farooqui who were arrayed as prosecution witnesses by the police.
According to the police, these two witnesses had seen the victim when she was entering Farooqui's house on the date of the alleged incident.

The court, however, said that these two witnesses might be called to testify, if needed, during the proceedings later.
The judge also asked the director of Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL) to expedite the examination of case property and submit the report at the earliest.

The recording of statement of prosecution witnesses in the case would continue tomorrow while the complainant is scheduled to depose before the court on September 14.
On September 2, the court had framed charge under section 376 (rape) of the IPC against Farooqui but dropped the charge under section 201 (destruction of evidence) of IPC.
The police had on June 29, filed the charge sheet against Farooqui alleging that he had raped the 30-year-old research scholar from Colombia University at his Sukhdev Vihar house in south Delhi on March 28 this year.

Police had also annexed medical reports of the woman and statements of over a dozen witnesses including a common friend. Farooqui has been in judicial custody since his arrest on June 20 and his bail plea is pending before the court.
The woman, in her complaint filed at New Friends colony police station, had alleged that Farooqui had raped her when she had gone to meet him to get help for her research work.
She had claimed to have met Farooqui at Varanasi where she had gone to collect information about her research theme based on Baba Gorakhnath.