[dropcap]B[/dropcap]OLLYWOOD actor Salman Khan got another blow in the 2002 hit-and-run case on Wednesday when a lab technician revealed that the actor tested positive in the alcohol test carried out after the accident.
An expert told a sessions court in Mumbai on Wednesday that content of alcohol in Salman’s blood was higher than permissible limit.
According to TV reports, experts told court that the permissible level of alcohol content in blood is 30 mg, whereas Salman’s blood contained 62 mg.
Earlier, a witness in the 2002 hit-and-run case had said that the actor was not smelling of liquor when he met him at his place a few hours after the mishap.
The prosecution’s case is that Salman’s car had rammed into a bakery in suburban Bandra killing one person and injuring four others who were sleeping outside on the pavement in the wee hours of September 28, 2002.
“I met Salman on the next day morning at 9am at his place (few hours after the mishap at around 3am) and hugged him, but he did not smell of alcohol,” Chiky Pandey, brother of actor Chunky Pandey, told the court of sessions Judge DW Deshpande.
During cross-examination, Pandey told Salman’s lawyer Srikant Shivade that the junction near the American Express Bakery (where the accident had taken place) was always busy with slow vehicular traffic movement.
Prosecutor Pradeep Gharat re-examined him on this point asking him whether there was heavy traffic at this junction all the 24 hours, to which the witness replied: ‘Not always.’
Significantly, the mishap had occurred in the early hours when there is hardly any traffic on road. Pandey told the prosecutor during examination-in-chief that he had helped Salman buy an imported car for Rs. 14 lakhs from Abdul Rehman through a customs clearing agent. (This question was asked as it was the same car which had met with an accident on the ill-fated day).
Pandey further said that Salman had given two cheques of Rs. 12 lakhs and Rs. 2 lakhs to car owner Abdul Rehman. At the time of mishap, the vehicle was in the name of its owner and had not yet been transferred in Salman’s name, he said.
Another witness, Salim Patel, a customs clearing agent, who had helped the actor in getting the car cleared from the customs after it was imported from Dubai, explained to the court the import procedures.
Salman Khan is on trial for culpable homicide not amounting to murder in the hit-and-run case for which he may face a jail term upto 10 years.
