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Award-winning Bollywood actor Shiney Ahuja was sentenced to seven years in prison yesterday for raping his maid, his lawyer said, in a case that shocked the world’s largest film industry.
Ahuja was granted bail in October 2009 and ordered by the court to leave Mumbai, the home of Bollywood, three months after he was arrested on charges of rape, criminal intimidation and wrongful confinement of his maid, who is now 20 years old.
The 37-year-old actor will appeal against the sentence in the Bombay High Court, lawyer Srikant Shivade said. The trial court was closed to reporters.
Ahuja broke down in the court. The verdict came despite the maid turning hostile during the trial.
Relying mostly on the police complaint filed against Ahuja, the court did not accept the maid’s version that she was not raped as the judge felt she gave false evidence, Shivade said.
Over a year after accusing Ahuja, the maid in September 2010 told the court the rape never took place. The medical examination in June 2009, however, confirmed rape.
She also said she made the serious charge against Ahuja because of pressure from a woman who introduced her to the actor.
In his defence, Ahuja had argued he was being framed.
Ahuja won a slew of awards for his 2003 debut in the critically acclaimed Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi. He has maintained his innocence throughout the judicial process.
In the more than 18 months between arrest and sentencing, Ahuja had been working on a new film.
“Shiney finished shooting for The Accident a while back. But we haven’t decided when to release it. That’s a marketing and business decision,” Ramkamal Mukherjee, head of corporate communications at Pritish Nandy Communications, said.
Another film featuring Ahuja, which has been ready for release for more than two years, has also not come out.
Ahuja is married and has a young daughter.
The sentencing of a movie star in India is rare.
Sanjay Dutt was sent to prison in 2007 under India’s tough anti-terrorist laws for possessing a powerful firearm, while Salman Khan was found guilty in 2006 of shooting an endangered species of antelope.
Meanwhile, in another case, a court acquitted Abhishek Kasliwal, the scion of a Mumbai-based textile tycoon, in a 2006 rape case for lack of evidence and the prosecution’s failure to prove the case.
Additional Sessions Judge S R Malpani-Pawar acquitted Abhishek, 32, son of Ambuj Kasliwal, the owner of Shriram Mills.
A 52-year-old woman had accused Abhishek of raping her on the night of March 11, 2006, after offering her a lift in his car in Colaba, south Mumbai.
In her police complaint, the woman said instead of taking her to her destination in Mumbai Central, he drove her to the Shriram Mills compound in Worli and raped her.