Rape case: Court questions conduct of Farooqui's wife

A Delhi court today questioned the conduct of the wife of film-maker Mahmood Farooqui, who is facing trial for allegedly raping a US researcher, saying it was unusual of her not to confront her husband after she got to know about the alleged assault.
"A wife cannot keep mum for so long when there are such serious allegations against the husband. It was an unusual behaviour," Additional Sessions Judge Sanjiv Jain said while asking Farooqui's counsel to explain why she did not confront him about the allegations for over a month since the time she had exchanged emails with the complainant.

The defence counsel said the accused was being treated for bipolar disorder at rehabilitation centre when the woman had sent an e-mail to him after the alleged incident.
Concluding the final arguments, Farooqui's counsel said accused's wife and film-maker Anusha Rizvi had responded to the emails sent by the American woman in April 2015 as she could not reach her husband.
"Rizvi had responded to the e-mail as Farooqui had no access to his laptop at the rehabilitation centre and she had deleted mails from his account and transferred them to hers. She could not reach him as he was being treated at the centre.

"Adding to this, Anusha's father also passed away in May 2015 which was a tough situation for her as well as Farooqui, who was very close to his father-in-law. In these unusual circumstances, she chose to wait for an appropriate time to communicate it to her husband in June which shows her strong, remarkable character," advocate Nitya Ramakrishnan, appearing for Farooqui, said.

The counsel also argued in court that there was an inexplicable delay in lodging of FIR and refuted the American woman's claim that her research visa had expired and she had to wait for its renewal.
The court fixed the next date of hearing in February as the Delhi High Court is yet to decide an application moved by the complainant's lawyer Vrinda Grover seeking re-examination of one of the witnesses in the case.

The trial in the case had commenced on September 9 last year when the woman had recorded her statement.
The US native, during in-camera proceedings, had alleged that Farooqui had raped her at his Sukhdev Vihar residence here on March 28 last year and later apologised to her in several e-mails exchanged between them.
The court had started trial in the case after framing charges of rape under section 376 (rape) of IPC against him.
The police had on June 19 lodged an FIR against Farooqui on the complaint of the woman after which he was arrested. The charge sheet was filed against him on July 29.