Preeti Jain, convicted for plotting to kill director Madhur Bhandarkar, gets bail

Mumbai: On Friday, model Preeti Jain was found guilty of plotting to murder National Award-winning director Madhur Bhandarkar and sentenced to three years of imprisonment, whom she had accused of raping her 16 times from 1999 to 2004. A Mumbai sessions court has fined Preeti 10,000 rupees for the same.

Her request for bail, however, was granted by the court and the aforementioned sentence has been suspended for four weeks.

Preeti has been convicted of paying Naresh Pardeshi, an aide of ganster Arun Gawli, to eliminate Bhandarkar in 2005, a year after the model lodged an FIR against the filmmaker accusing him of raping her.

Pardeshi and his accomplice Shivram Das have also been found guilty of helping her and sentenced to three years behind bars.

In court the prosecution said that Preeti had paid a sum of 75, 000 rupees to Pardeshi but asked for the money back when her job was not done. Upon learning about the deal, Arun Gawli alerted the police.

The court had cancelled Preeti’s case against Bhandarkar in 2012 after she said she was dropping the charges.

In her complaint, the model had accused the filmmaker of exploiting her sexually after promising her a role in his films. In her statement to police, she said Bhandarkar had raped her 16 times between 1999 and 2004.

Within a year, the police got to know about Preeti wanting to eliminate Bhandarkar and had hired a contract killer. During the trail, the court examined a total of 51 witnesses including Bhandarkar.

On April 28, a day after Preeti Jain was convicted, Madhur Bhandarkar tweeted a cryptic message on his Twitter handle, which read: Some things are better left unsaid! Some things are better left as they are. Life moves on, so have I.