Buttressing the stand taken by Salman Khan in his defence in the much-discussed hit-and-run case, his driver Ashok Singh said on Monday that it was he and not the actor who was driving the car when it met with an accident on the night of September 28, 2002, in which one person was killed and four others were injured.
Three days after Salman gave a new twist to the ongoing re-trial in the hit-and-run case by testifying that he was neither drunk nor was he behind the wheels at the time of mishap, his driver Ashok Singh went by the actor’s version and said it was he who was negotiating the car when he lost control after a tyre burst, and the vehicle climbed up the stairs of a bakery.
Contradicting the deposition made by Salman’s late bodyguard Ravindra Patil in the original trial and the evidence adduced by the Prosecution in the original and re-trial, Ashok Singh said it was he who caused the mishap.
The Prosecution’s case has been that Salman — allegedly in a drunken State — had driven his Toyota land Cruiser recklessly on September 28, 2002, killing a pavement dweller and injuring four others, who were asleep on the same pavement.
Deposing as a defence witness before the court of Sessions Judge DW Deshpande, Singh said, “After a tyre burst, the car was dragged to the left. I tried to turn the steering wheel but it was hard. Then, I tried to apply brakes but by then the car had climbed up the stairs of bakery”.
Corroborating another statement by the actor that he had got down from the right side of the car after the mishap, Singh said: “I was in a state of shock...Salman was sitting on the left side. He tried to open the door but it had got jammed. He got down from my side which was on the right”.
Given that it was for the first time that he was appearing the trial court and owning up the responsibility for an accident in which the actor is the accused, Singh’s deposition ist crucial in the case. Singh claimed that he had remained silent all these years as had no knowledge of court procedures.
During a cross-examination by Special public prosecutor Pradeep Gharat, Singh said that he had not consulted a lawyer and that he came to the court after having been advised to do so by the erstwhile film script writer and the actor’s father Salim Khan, for whom he continued to work as a driver.
Singh denied that he had taken huge sum of money from the actor to make a false statement in the case. Responding to questions raised by Salman’s lawyer Shrikant Shivade, Singh said that the mishap occurred after he replaced the actor’s another driver Altaf, after the latter asked him to do so.
“Altaf who worked for the actor, had called me on phone at 1.30 am that day and asked me to pick up the actor at the JW Marriot hotel since he was not well. So when I reached the hotel in an auto-rickshaw, I saw the actor sitting on the driver’s side with engine running and air-conditioning on,” Singh recalled. “Since Altaf had already left, I replaced him as the driver, When I got behind the wheels, Salman sat on my left and his friend Kamal Khan and constable Ravindra Patil, the actor’s police bodyguard, sat behind,” he said.
Recalling the events after the mishap, Singh said that he dialled ‘100’ and informed the police after the mishap. “later I went to the Bandra police station and told the officers there about the accident. He was asked to sit on a bench outside,” Singh said.
During the course of his 100-minute long deposition, Singh claimed that he tried to tell the police about his involvement in the mishap, but they refused to record his statement. “When Salman arrived at the police, I told him that I suspected something fishy, because the police did not take down my statement.... Instead, the police arrested the actor”.
After informing the court that he had been in the employment of Salman’s father Salim Khan since 1990, Singh said he was devoted to the Khan family. He, however, denied that he was prepared to sacrifice even his own life for the actor.
Responding to another query by the Public Prosecutor, said he was aware that one person had died and others were injured in the mishap and that he was responsible for the mishap. Queried as to why he had kept quiet all these years despite knowing that the actor had been booked wrongly, Singh said he did not know what to do.
On being asked as to why he had chosen to speak now, Singh again said earlier he could earlier not decide what to do and did not know the court procedures and had now come to the court on being told to do so by the actor’s father Salim Khan. He denied that he had consulted a lawyer becoming making a deposition in the court. To a query, Singh denied that a tyre could get burst if the vehicle was running at the speed of 100 to 140 kmph.
Through his deposition, Singh has totally contradicted the statement made by the actor’s police guard Ravindra Patil. Ravindra Patil had said in his complaint lodged with the Bandra police soon after the mishap that the actor was driving the car at the time of the accident and that he was under the influence of liquor at that time. During the original trial, Patil had also deposed before a Magistrate, saying that that he had warned Salman not to drive rashly or else he would meet with an accident but the actor did not heed to his advice.
Following Singh’s deposition, the Judge adjourned the hearing to April 1. The actor’s lawyer Sherikant Shivade said that he would inform the court on Tuesday whether he wanted to examine more witnesses.
Salman is facing a re-trial in the hit-and-run case before the city sessions court for an aggravated charge of culpable homicide not amounting to murder invoked against him midway through the earlier trial on December 5 2013.
Earlier, the actor was charged with rash and negligent driving which provides for imprisonment up to two years.
