Witness to speak in case against Salman

Mumbai: The prosecution will examine a key witness in the hit-and-run case involving actor Salman Khan on Wednesday.

The case is one in which Salman has been accused of killing one person and injuring four others.

The witness is one of the persons who was injured in the mishap when the actor rammed his car into a bakery in suburban Bandra on September 28, 2002.

Earlier, another witness, Mohammed Abdulla Rauf Shaikh, had told the court that he and few others were sleeping on the footpath when a car had rammed into the bakery injuring them.

While giving evidence, Mohammed had disowned a crucial portion of his police statement, saying he had not seen Salman getting down from the driver's seat of the car although he had told police earlier that he had seen the actor alight from the seat after the mishap.

Mohammed had told the court that he had heard people saying 'Salman car se bahar niklo' (Salman come out of the car), but that he himself did not see the actor as he was underneath the vehicle, which rammed into the bakery shop.

In keeping with a high court directive, the actor had in 2002 deposited Rs 10 lakh with the registrar to be paid as compensation to the victims.

Of the 60 witnesses, five have already deposed.

Among them were Ravindra Patil and Ramasray Pandey, who had witnessed the incident.

Patil was Salman's bodyguard and had accompanied him when the actor met with the accident, while Pandey was sleeping in a shop adjacent to the accident site.

The third witness was the one who had prepared the panchnama at the site of the accident and the fourth was Shaikh Ibrahim, cousin of the deceased, Narulla Salim Shaikh.

The fifth, Mohammed Abdul Rauf Shaikh, deposed on June 29.