Mahmood Farooqui, the co-director of the film Peepli Live' has been convicted of rape charges. A Delhi court on Thursday sentenced Mahmood  to seven years in jail for raping an American research scholar at his residence in the national capital in March 2015. Additional sessions judge Sanjiv Jain also imposed a fine of Rs. 50,000 on him to be paid to the rape victim. A lower court in Delhi said that if Farooqui didn't pay the fine, his jail sentence would be increased by three months. The court had on July 30, 2016 held him guilty of the crime.

Farooqui, who also specializes in the art of Urdu storytelling called Dastangoi, was on July 30 convicted of raping the American woman at his South Delhi residence last year. The filmmaker, who at the time of the conviction was out on bail, was taken into custody soon after the court found him guilty. The case relates to the March 28, 2015 rape of a 35-year-old American, a student at New York's Columbia University, who was in the Capital for research work on her doctoral thesis. During her deposition as a prosecution witness in the court, the woman alleged that Farooqui raped her and later apologised via several e-mails exchanged between them. Farooqui denied the allegations and said he was falsely implicated.