Cousin accuses Jeetendra of sexual assault; actor rubbishes charge

Shimla/Mumbai, February 7

Actor Jeetendra was on Wednesday accused by his cousin of sexually assaulting her 47 years ago, a charge that the Sixties’ star rubbished as “baseless and ridiculous”.

The complainant said the actor, whose actual name is Ravi Kapoor, is her aunt’s son.

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In her complaint to the Director General of Police, Himachal Pradesh, she said the incident took place in Shimla in January, 1971, when she was 18 and the actor was 28.

She said he had “arranged” for the victim to join him from New Delhi to Shimla on the sets of a film he was shooting for.

She alleged in the complaint that after reaching Shimla at night, an inebriated Jeetendra went to her room, joined two twin beds and sexually assaulted her.

The actor denied that any such incident had taken place.

Police sources here said an FIR had not been registered as the complaint had been emailed to the DGP.

For the registration of an FIR, the signature of the complainant was necessary, police sources said.

In a statement issued in Mumbai, Jeetendra’s advocate Rizwan Siddiquee said the allegation was “baseless and ridiculous”.

“Foremost, my client specifically and categorically denies any such incident. Besides even otherwise such baseless, ridiculous and fabricated claims cannot be entertained by any court of law or the law enforcement agencies after a span of almost 50 years,” it said.

Siddiquee said the law did not give any person “any rights or liberties of making any baseless... claims against any man publicly and seek to defame him with a hidden personal agenda”.

“The statute has provided a justice delivery system through the courts, and the Limitation Act 1963 was specifically enacted to ensure that all genuine complaints are made within a maximum time limit of three years, so that a proper investigation is carried out and timely justice is delivered,” it added.

It also questioned the timing of the complaint.

“In any event the timing of this baseless complaint seems to be nothing but a miserable effort made by a jealous competitor to disrupt the business activities of my client and his esteemed company. Such efforts are therefore in all fairness treated with the contempt it truly deserves,” it said.

The allegation by the woman, who said the actor was her father’s sister’s son, comes in the wake of a slew of accusations of sexual assault by actresses against American producer Harvey Weinstein and others in the entertainment business.

The 75-year-old actor, who featured as a hero in a host of Hindi films such as Farz, Caravan, Humjoli, Parichay and Kinara, is also a film producer. His daughter Ekta runs a production company, and son Tusshar is an actor. — PTI