Bollywood filmmaker Mahmood Farooqui was sentenced Thursday to seven years in prison after being convicted of raping a 35-year-old American researcher.
A New Delhi court found Farooqui guilty last week in India’s first conviction for an oral sex rape, prosecution lawyer advocate Vrinda Grover told CNN. Farooqui must also pay a 50,000-rupee ($747) fine.
The victim was in India conducting research and was introduced to Farooqui through a mutual friend, Grover said.
Farooqui invited the victim to his South Delhi home in March 2015 and then forced himself on her, Grover said.
“This case is an example that rape is not a class problem, and even rich and affluent people are indulged in such crime,” she said.
Farooqui is best known for his work as co-director of the 2010 film “Peepli (Live).”
India’s response to sexual attacks
Forced oral sex was classified as rape in 2013, Grover said. The reclassification was part of a series of changes to the country’s sexual assault laws following international outrage over the 2012 gang-rape and murder of a 23-year-old woman on a bus.
Critics say India, like many nations, suffers from a culture that has traditionally been relatively lax about responding to sexual attacks. Few women who’ve been raped want to appear in court for fear of being stigmatized and traumatized.
The National Crime Records Bureau’s annual report of crime statistics found in 2013 that a woman was raped somewhere in India every 20 minutes, and the number of children raped had increased by 336% in 10 years.
