A day after he tore into the statements made by three of the four injured persons in the 2002 hit-and-run incident, Salman Khan’s legal counsel Amit Desai on Tuesday questioned the silence of the four witnesses about the nature of responses from the actor’s friend and singer Kamaal Khan and his police bodyguard Ravindra Patil, soon after the incident.
Building on his arguments on Monday that the three of the three of the four witnesses had allegedly been “tutored” by the Prosecution to say that they had seen the actor emerge from right side of the car, Defence lawyer Desai contended the four witnesses had nothing to say on what Kamaal Khan and Patil did after the incident.
“There is not even one sentence about what Patil and Kamaal Khan didIJ Did they help the victimsIJ Did they help lift the carIJ...also there is nothing to suggest about drunkenness of other private person (Kamaal Khan),” Desai told the court.
In his arguments before Judge AR Joshi who is hearing the actor’s appeal against his conviction and five-year jail term in the 2002 hit-and-run case, Desai said: “These two (Kamaal Khan and Patil) could have led the evidence. Ravindra Patil sang just one song - ‘Salman was drunk, Salman was driving the car’. Added to that is the process of collection of evidence and presentation in court has not been proper. You (Prosecution) must narrate the incident in all its dimensions”.
Desai reiterated three of the four injured persons -- Muslim Nimayat Shaikh (PW-2), Mannu Khan (PW-3) and Mohammed Kalim Iqbal Pathan (PW-4) - had been “tutored” by the Prosecution to say that they saw Salman came out of the mishap-hit car from the right side, thus suggesting that the actor was not behind the wheels at the time of mishap. He also brought to the attention of the court that the fourth witness Mohammed Abdullah Shaikh (PW-11) had refused to toe the Prosecution line.
“PW-11 has not said anything - left side, right side, driver’s side, while the other three said so,”Desai asked.