Salman denies being drunk, driving car

Tribune News Service

Mumbai, March 27

Actor Salman Khan today told a trail court that he wasn’t driving the Toyota Land Cruiser which met with an accident in the streets of suburban Bandra in 2002, killing one person and injuring four others. The actor also told Sessions Judge DW Deshpande that he was not drunk at the time of the incident.

“My driver, Ashok Singh, was driving the car at the time of the mishap,” Khan told the judge during the recording of his statement. Confirming eye-witness accounts that he had alighted from the driver’s side of the vehicle, Khan said the door on the passenger’s side was jammed and he was unable to open it. The actor further told the court that he had accompanied his brother Sohail and a group of friends for a party at a hotel.

Confirming that he had ordered drinks, Khan denied having any alcohol. “I had a glass of water,” Khan said. He also denied running away from the scene of the accident after the crash.

According to Khan there were three other people beside him in the car. One of them constable Ravindra Patil, who was responsible for providing security to the actor, had in his statement said Khan was indeed driving the vehicle. However, the movie star told the court that Patil was asleep in the vehicle when the accident took place. The constable died a few years ago. In his three-hour long questioning by the judge, Khan answered more than 400 questions.