A complaint has been registered against Mahmood Farooqui. The moment he heard about it he presented himself at the concerned police station. He was thereafter taken into custody.



The complaint is manipulated and false. We don’t want to make any further comments on the matter because the case is under investigation. We will wait for the court’s decision where the actual truth of the matter will come out. In the meanwhile we are thankful for the show of support from friends, colleagues and well wishers.



We are determined to fight this till the reality is presented before the people. We are very sure of it.

Mahmood Farooqui, the co-director and scriptwriter of the 2010 film Peepli Live, was arrested by Delhi Police on Saturday on charges of rape.The woman who filed the complaint against him is a US national pursuing her PhD from an American university, said Ramesh Chandra Varma, the station house officer at the New Friends Colony police station, which is handling the case.“The alleged incident happened on the evening of March 28 in the house of the accused,” he said.The charge was filed almost three months after the alleged incident, on June 19, under section 376 of the Indian Penal Code.Farooqui surrendered to the police on June 20 and was produced in court, which sent him to judicial custody for 15 days.Mahmood Farooqui is an actor and historian, best known for his revival of medieval art of Urdu storytelling known as Dastangoi. His work as a historian includes Besieged: Voices from Delhi, a series of translated texts from the Revolt of 1857. Farooqui has also worked as a researcher for historian William Dalrymple on his books, White Mughal and The Last Mughal.His wife, Anusha Rivzi, who co-directed Peepli Live with him, put out this statement, denying the allegations.