A US research scholar, who was allegedly raped by Bollywood movie 'Peepli Live' co-director Mahmood Farooqui, today told a Delhi court that after the accused had forced himself upon her, she was in a state of shock and had to muster courage to lodge a complaint.
Deposing as a prosecution witness before Additional Sessions Judge Sanjiv Jain for third consecutive day in an in-camera proceeding, the American national narrated about how she had lodged the complaint against Farooqui at South Delhi's New Friends Colony police station.
According to court sources, she narrated the incident and said she was shocked by Farooqui's assault and talked about it with her friend, also a US national, and then lodged the complaint.
The sources said she told the court that she had gone to the police station along with her friend, wrote the complaint and also handed over the e-mails exchanged between her and Farooqui to the police.
The recording of her testimony remained inconclusive and would continue tomorrow when her friend is also likely to depose before the court.
On September 9, the court had started the trial in the case after framing charges of rape under section 376 (rape) of IPC against Farooqui. It had dropped the charge under section 201 (destruction of evidence) of IPC against him.
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, 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.
