Salman killed Chinkara, says ‘missing’ driver

New Delhi, July 27

The man who was driving the jeep that Bollywood actor Salman Khan used during a suspected hunting trip in which he had been accused of having killed a deer in Rajasthan in 1998 claimed that the actor had shot the animal.

"I stick to the statement I made before the magistrate 18 years ago: Salman got off the car and shot the deer," Harish Dulani, the “missing” driver of the vehicle, told a news channel as he insisted he was not “absconding”, but he feared threats. 

"I was scared due to several threats received by me and my father. Due to fear I went away to my relatives' place in Jodhpur. We had asked for protection but did not get it. If I had police protection, I could have given a statement. That was what I always intended," he said.

He also claimed also said that he has been "punished" for being Salman's driver.

"I have been punished for being Salman's driver. I am living my life in fear," he said.

Dulani’s statement comes two days after the Rajasthan High Court overturned a lower court verdict to hold Khan not guilty of being involved in two cases of poaching Chinkaras in Jodhpur in 1998.

A lower court had found Khan guilty in two separate cases of poaching — one involving two chinkaras in Bhawad on September 26-27, 1998 and the other involving another one in Mathania, Ghoda Farm, on September 28-29, 1998, while he was shooting for Rajshri Productions 1999 movie ‘Hum Saath Saath Hain’.

The actor is among the seven people accused of having been involved in the two cases. He was jailed in 2007 for nearly a week in 1998.

A lower court had sentenced the actor to one year in one case on February 17, 2006, and for five years for the second case on April 10, 2006.
The court acquitted Khan for want of evidence, saying that the pellets recovered from the animal were not from the actor’s licenced gun.

Dulani, the state’s only witness in the cases, had been reported missing in 2002, which weakened the prosecution's case against the movie star. — Agencies