Shiney Ahuja gets seven years for raping maid

Mumbai: Actor Shiney Ahuja was sentenced to seven years in jail by a Mumbai court on Wednesday after being found guilty of raping his maid.
Ahuja, who won the Filmfare Best Debut Award for the film 'Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi' in 2006, was accused of rape, criminal intimidation and holding his maid hostage and faced a maximum punishment of up to 10 years.
The maid had earlier turned hostile when called to court to identify Ahuja who was arrested in 2009 and later released on bail.

The victim's confession under section 164 before a magistrate was taken into account.

Speaking to CNN-IBN, Ahuja's cousin Deepak Pandit said, "we have full faith in the judicial system of the country."

While convicting the accused, Judge P M Chouhan relied mainly upon the FIR in the case, Ahuja's lawyer Srikant Shivade told reporters who were not allowed in the court as the trial was held in-camera.

The court has also not accepted the maid's evidence in the court that she was not raped as the judge felt that she had given false evidence.

Clad in pink shirt and jeans, 38-year-old Ahuja was accompanied by his wife Anupam in the court when the judgement was delivered.

According to a policeman, there were tears in his eyes when the judge pronounced the order.

In September last year, the maid had backtracked from her allegations that Ahuja had raped her at his residence in Mumbai and said the incident had never occurred.

The 20-year-old girl told the court that she had filed the complaint against the actor at the behest of the woman who had secured her the job of a maid in Ahuja's residence.

Earlier, in June 2009, the girl had lodged a police complaint alleging that she was raped by the actor at his residence. Ahuja was arrested on June 14 and released on bail three months later.

On September 3 last year, the victim had identified Ahuja in the court and said she used to work at his residence as a domestic help. But when asked about the incident, she said she was never raped.

Following this, the court had declared her hostile.

The police, in a 109-page chargesheet, had charged Ahuja with rape and wrongfully confining the victim.

Ahuja, in his defence, had argued that he was falsely implicated.

Senior criminal lawyer Majid Memon said Ahuja was entitled to challenge this conviction in an appeal court.

Ahuja was also fined Rs 30,000. But he was cleared of charges of illegal confinement and criminal intimidation. There were 15 witnesses in all who testified in the court.

What went against Ahuja

The girl's torn hymen, a positive DNA test of the blood on her clothes and signs of struggle on both Ahuja's and the maid's torn clothes implicated him.

(With additional inputs from PTI)

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