Mahmood Farooqui is an Indian writer, performer and director. He specializes in a type of story-telling known as Dastangoi. Farooqui along with his uncle Shamsur Rahman Faruqi, noted Urdu poet and literary critic, revived Dastangoi, the ancient art of Urdu story telling. He was awarded the Ustad Bismillah Khan Yuva Pursakar in 2010 for it. In August 2016 he was found guilty of rape by a lower court, but in September 2017 he was acquitted by the Delhi High Court. The High Court judgment was later upheld by the Supreme Court.