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Akshaye Khanna and Richha Chadda starrer Section 375 has been released in cinemas and the film has been receiving a rave response from the audience.
However there have also been a few critics of the film who say that the film is pulling back the #MeToo movement by many steps.
Well now, the film’s director Manish Gupta reveals that the film is based on bollywood actor Shiney Ahuja, who was sentenced to 7 years of rigorous imprisonment after being acquitted in the rape case that accused him of rape his house help.
While talking to The Quint, Manish said, “It is absolutely inspired by the Shiney Ahuja case because I knew Shiney personally. This was in 2009. In 2009, I was supposed to do a film with Shiney. It was supposed to be a film on the gangster Charles Sobhraj. So I used to visit Shiney at his residence in Oshiwara and his wife Anupam.”
“She was his manager, so I used to interact with her. And now there was this maid, a very young maid in the house. She used to serve me water etc. One evening, I just heard that Shiney has been arrested for raping that girl. I was shocked. I rushed to the police station – the Oshiwara police station.” he added.
Section 375 is inspired by Shiney Ahuja’s Rape Case
Manish also went onto narrate his exchange with the DCP and how the DCP had no choice, but to keep him in custody.
Manish said, “I met the DCP and he very candidly told me that we’ve established intercourse, but we are not sure if it is consensual or if it’s rape. So I told him that then let him go, he said, ‘No he is in custody.’ I said, but if you’re saying that you are unable to establish whether it’s consensual or forced so then how can you keep him in custody. He said, I’m bound by the law, that’s the law. I have to obey the law so I’m not sure whether the sex is consensual or forced, but I have to keep him under custody.”
“His career was ruined, he spent four to five months in jail and after he came out he was still tainted. Imagine if you are accused of a crime like rape, nobody will want to associate with you. Imagine the embarrassment within the family. His whole life was ruined, his career was ruined,” he said.
Post his interaction with the DCP, Manish went and spoke to Shiney’s wife Anupam again and narrated their interaction.
“Now I went and spoke to Anupam (Shiney’s wife), I went to her house again and met her. She was devastated but she told me… she explained to me how the DNA report can be error prone. It’s not fool proof and she explained that to me. There are a number of laboratories that the sample goes through and when they match the DNA, it’s not a fool proof mechanism. And the investigation done by the police is very shoddy. They just rush it up because they need to say something. So she was telling me that. And she’s also saying that the DNA report can be manipulated.”
Manish says that the way Shiney’s case shaped up is what inspired him to make the film. He wanted to look at both sides of the story.
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Shiney Ahuja’s controversial life to be turned into a film?
“Now I didn’t know what to believe. On one side was Anupam who is a woman and her husband has been accused of rape. Her life is devastated even if it was consensual sex. On the other hand, there is this girl who has been raped, exploited so it was rather disturbing for me. And that’s how the germ of the movie came. But yes there are other similar cases to that of Shiney’s that were source material for me,” Manish concluded.
