An Indian author is making a film about the gang rape of his mother, a well-known 1970s model, to show victims are not just the poor and powerless as the country comes to terms with a series of brutal rapes in recent months.

The film, Beautiful Ugly, documents events 28 years ago leading up to and after the gang rape of Sheila Ray, who never reported the crime. She died in 1990 aged 44.

"I want this film to show that rape also happens in the so-called glamour world of films and modelling and is not just something that happens on the streets and villages of India," Ashok Banker told in an interview.

"She was gang-raped by four men during a party and then dumped outside her home in the early hours of the morning."

"She didn't report it to the police fearing that she would be stigmatised and her career would suffer, but in the end she suffered as it drove her to having a nervous breakdown and her career never recovered."

Activists say a woman is raped every 30 minutes in India, with the majority of cases going unreported. National Crime Records Bureau data show more than 18,100 people were tried for rape in 2003, with just 4,645 convicted.

Banker, who was 12 years old at the time of the rape, said he spent years researching what happened to his mother and discovered many women working in India's Bollywood film and glamour industry have been sexually assaulted, yet remain silent.

He said a combination of conservatism and fear still prevails in the country, despite the lavish, liberal lifestyle of a growing number of socialites who spend their time at cocktail parties in five-star hotels and exclusive nightclubs.

"Although rape is now a much more talked about issue in India, still women face the possibility of being ostracised from their social circles and in the workplace, even in more liberal, urban societies," said Banker, a well-known author of fantasy novels.

"But more importantly, many of these rapists are well-known, high-profile men, and victims not only fear they would jeopardise their careers by reporting to the police but also that police will not take action against these high-level people," he added.

Thousands of young women flock to Mumbai from all over India every year, hoping to make it big as a Bollywood heroine or a catwalk model. But with competition so high, many end up in dance bars, performing for men for money, or even as prostitutes.

Banker said he hoped the film would be released by September in time for its screening at the Sundance Film Festival.

He said even though Beautiful Ugly was not a typical Bollywood blockbuster, he believed it would attract much attention in and outside of India because of its unusual content.

"I don't expect this movie to be a money spinner, but I hope that views can be changed and these high-profile men who work in the industry realise that they no longer can take advantage of young women and get away with it," Banker said.

Talking anout her mother's private life Banker further tells that she was married to actor Sudhir when she began having an illicit relationship with director Mahesh Bhatt. She conceived a child by that relationship but being a much-married woman, she was forced to abort the child in the seventh month. Sudhir probably thought it was his child.

Her grandmother who was a nurse, organised the abortion, but being in an advanced state of pregnancy, the child was removed alive. The newborn baby was then given to a fisherman and his wife from a Bandra fishing village. After that none of had any idea what happened to the baby

However Mahesh Bhatt fires the final salvo in the entire controversy and says: "I would be delighted to undergo a DNA test if the child is found."