An Indian court on Wednesday jailed a Bollywood actor for seven years for raping his maid, local media said, in a case which has sent shockwaves through the film industry. Shiney Ahuja was convicted of rape, criminal intimidation and wrongful confinement of his maid in June 2009, a local court ruled, despite the victim withdrawing her allegation of rape.
Judge PM Chouhan, finding Ahuja guilty, relied on the original complaint lodged with the police and did not consider the maid's evidence, the Press Trust of India agency said late Wednesday. The award-winning-Ahuja, who denied the charges, will appeal against the sentence in the Mumbai High Court, his lawyer Srikant Shivade told reporters. The court proceedings were closed to the media.
Ahuja, 37, starred in several Bollywood films, including "Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi" (A Thousand Desires), "Gangster" and "Life in a Metro". Last September, the 20-year-old maid withdrew the rape allegation, saying she was told to make a complaint to police by another woman who had initially got her the job with the star.
The court then declared her a hostile witness. Ahuja spent three months in prison on remand in 2009, until he was released on bail. While out of jail, he began filming for upcoming movies. Ahuja is the latest in a number of Bollywood stars to have gone behind bars in recent years. Sanjay Dutt was convicted in 2007 for buying illegal weapons from the plotters of the deadly 1993 Mumbai bombings, which killed more than 250 people.
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