Farooqui Rape Case: Anusha Rizvi Says Conviction Unjust

Rizvi has come out strongly in support of her husband and said that the complainant was not close to her family.

A day after Peepli Live co-director Mahmood Farooqui was sentenced to seven years imprisonment for raping a US scholar in 2015, his wife Anusha Rizvi has spoken out. She has said that the ‘unjust’ conviction has ignored ‘irrefutable evidence on the most flimsy grounds.’

Stating that the complainant’s allegation of rape has been discredited in court, she said that Farooqui would appeal against the conviction in the High Court.

Earlier, Rizvi had written a post on Facebook where she questioned the intentions of Rama Lakshmi’s viral post against her husband and called it ‘deliberately misleading.’ She clarified that the complainant in the rape case is close to neither her nor Mahmood Farooqui and that the prosecution in the case kept dropping witnesses. She also alleged that Danish Hussain, the key witness in the case, has testified in court that he was only in touch with the complainant twice; once, immediately after the alleged rape and then, after she had filed the FIR.

The post has now been deleted. Here is the full, unedited text of the deleted post.

There has been this relentless charge that there is silence on the issue as if a frenzied frothing at the mouth is almost a political necessity. And In any case I have stated my position loud and clear right from the beginning: I believe Mahmood Farooqui is innocent. Along with me, many other people, men and women, have also clearly stated that they believe in his innocence. How is that silence? No, there is no silence on our part. There is utter disquiet.

In a recent Facebook post Rama Lakshmi, a journalist with the Washington Post, has claimed to break her silence on the case. The post has gone viral with many people and websites sharing it as gospel truth. However the post is deliberately misleading and has factual inaccuracies.

Right at the outset I must clarify that there is a very clever attempt on the part of the writer to claim closeness to us that does not exist. She may have been following Dastangoi for 9 years but certainly she was not privy to our personal lives. Secondly, throughout the trial there was a concerted effort to claim that the complainant was a close friend of Mahmood’s. It was also claimed that she was a close friend of mine. I have met the complainant all of 3 times in my entire life. And despite Rama Lakshmi’s emphasis on our imaginary friendship with the complainant, she fails to mention her own close association with Danish Husain, the main witness against Mahmood Farooqui.

It is strange indeed that a journalist with the Washington Post, in possession of knowledge that she feels nails the accused, choses not to appear in Court all through the trial, yet laments post-hoc the loneliness of the complainant in a Facebook post. What good are the laments and sermons when Rama Lakshmi did not match any of it in her actions?

Rama Lakshmi claims deep knowledge about the case but is perhaps unaware that the prosecution kept dropping witnesses to the extent that they were left with just one substantial witness, Danish Husain. In legal language he is called a ‘hearsay witness’ because he was not present on the spot of the alleged crime. Should the journalist not have gone to Court and strengthened their argument?

A large number of women who know Mahmood and are actually friends with him are standing by him. I doubt very much if all these independent women would like to be reduced to Rama Lakshmi’s “Bro-Code” theories.

Rama Lakshmi has claimed that the family intimidated and harassed the complainant “even called her friends and asked them to ‘mediate’ and drop the case.” As a journalist she should provide some proof of the allegations she is making. I request her to apply for the testimonies and read some of what was actually said in Court and not rely so much on information fed to her through invested sources.

Since Rama Lakshmi was not in court therefore she doesn’t know perhaps that it was an in camera trial where no one other than the Judge, his staff, the accused, the complainant and their two lawyers were allowed. In that room a screen was set up behind which the complainant sat. She could only be seen by the judge and was hidden from the others. The trial was conducted in a most civilized and decent manner as noted by the Judge himself. So on what basis has Rama Lakshmi accused us of intimidation and harassment?

Despite Rama Lakshmi’s profound knowledge of the case, she is unaware that Danish Husain has claimed in court that after the complainant informed him of the alleged rape, he was not in touch with her till he heard that she had filed an FIR. Isn’t it strange that a man when informed by his friend that she was raped, immediately stops all communication with her? But continues regular and normal communication with the accused almost until the FIR is filed?

According to Rama Lakshmi, she was informed by the complainant about the alleged rape. What did she do? She keeps quiet about it. Never appears in court as a witness but writes a sanctimonious post on Facebook after the verdict goes against the accused. I find that odd behaviour. In the Mahmood Farooqui case the weird thing is that if we remain silent then we are labeled one way and if we attempt to speak then it becomes victim blaming.

I can go on into the details of the case but would that not compromise the dignity of the complainant? Besides the discussion on the merits of a case needs to happen in Real Courts rather than Kangaroo Courts being attempted on social media