Bollywood filmmaker Mahmood Farooqui has been held guilty of raping a 30-year-old American woman in his South Delhi home last year. The 38-year-old 'Peepli Live' co-director, who was on bail, was taken into custody after additional sessions judge Sanjiv Jain convicted him of the offence under section 376 IPC on Saturday.

The court is believed to have relied on the testimony of the woman, a Columbia University research scholar, and other prosecution witnesses, including a common friend, and the e-mails she exchanged with Farooqui and other friends soon after the incident. Arguments on the quantum of sentence will be heard on August 2. Farooqui, who had co me to the court with wife Anusha Rizvi and some friends, faces punishment ranging from seven years to life imprisonment.

The woman was in Delhi to work on her doctoral thesis when the incident took place. The testimony of Danish Hussain (Farooqui's friend of over 20 years) as prosecution witness went against the director. It was Hussain who had introduced Farooqui to the complainant. The sexual assault allegedly took place on March 28 at Farooqui's Sukhdev Vihar home when his wife was not at home.

Hussain, 44, had told the court that the complainant had informed him about the sexual assault immediately after the incident. According to the prosecution, she not only sent Hussain WhatsApp messages but also called him from the taxi to share her trauma. Hussain also told the court that he had received emails from the complainant later, containing forwarded emails exchanged between her and the accused, which included mails from Farooqui's wife. The prosecution claimed that both Farooqui and his wife, Anusha, had apologised to the woman for the incident.

Hussain's testimony was challenged by Farooqui, who said the messages which were sent immediately after the alleged assault when she was still at his house, showed the woman discussing “trivial things“ and not mentioning anything about the rape. “In these messages, the woman has discussed how she was upset about not going to a wedding despite being dressed for it. This is unnatural for someone who says she was traumatised by the incident,“ Farooqui's lawyer Nitya Ramakrishnan told the court. Seeking Farooqui's conviction, the prosecution relied heavily on the mails sent by the woman to the filmmaker and her academic supervisor in which, police said, she had elaborated on the nature of assault.