Jeetendra, facing sexual harassment charges, gets relief

Shimla March 17 (IANS) In a major relief to veteran Bollywood actor Jeetendra who is accused of sexually harassing his cousin the Himachal Pradesh High Court on Saturday stayed the state police investigation into the case.

Hearing the actor s petition Justice Ajay Mohan Goel passed this order after an initial hearing.

Jeetendra sought quashing of the first information report (FIR) registered by the police on February 15.

Jeetendra was accused of sexually harassing his cousin who came forward last month to file a police complaint 47 years after the alleged incident.

Jeetendra has dubbed the charges as "baseless" and a "miserable effort by a jealous competitor to disrupt his business activities".

Jeetendra whose real name is Ravi Kapoor is the son of the victim s father s sister.

The victim made the allegation in a police complaint filed with the state s Director General of Police.

Rubbishing the charges Jeetendra s counsel Rizwan Siddiquee in a statement earlier said "Foremost my client (Jeetendra) specifically and categorically denies any such incident."

He claimed that 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.

"Such efforts are therefore in all fairness treated with the contempt it truly deserves " Siddique said.

As per the complaint the incident took place in January 1971 when the victim was 18 and Jeetendra was 28. It happened when he "arranged" for the victim to join him from New Delhi in Shimla on the set of his movie without the complainant s "awareness".

The victim has claimed that on the night they reached Shimla Jeetendra returned to the room in an inebriated state joined the two separate beds and sexually assaulted her.

Jeetendra now 75 is a well-known name in the Hindi film industry. He is also a film producer and has daughter Ekta and son Tusshar with wife Shobhaa.

--IANS
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