New Delhi, May 4
Another eyewitness, Shiv Das
Yadav, today turned hostile in the Jessica Lal murder case, stating he never saw anyone firing a shot at the ramp model.
Yesterday, key witness and complainant in the case Shyan Munshi had retracted his earlier statement made to the police and failed to identify Manu Sharma and his friends during the recording of evidence.
Deposing before the court of Additional Sessions Judge H.R.
Malhotra, Shiv Das Yadav today gave a clean chit to main accused Sidharth
Vashisth, alias Manu Sharma, saying he had never told the police that he saw someone firing at Jessica Lal on the intervening night of April 29-30, 1999, at a party at the Qutub Colonade
restaurant.
Shiv Das, an electrician who was present at the restaurant when the party was on, said: I had gone to the cafe as I heard some noises like bursting of crackers and I saw Beena Ramani was going inside the cafe then I followed her.
I saw Jessica Lal was lying injured on the floor but I did not see anyone firing shots at her, he added.
Special Public Prosecutor
S.K. Saxena requested the court to allow him to cross-examine Shiv Das as he had retracted from his earlier statement made to the police. The court fixed May 15 as the date for his cross-examination and also summoned the last eyewitness in the case Karan Rajput on May
16.
Munshi who continued to be cross-examined by the Special Public Prosecutor today, told the court that it was correct that photographs were shown to him by the Delhi police but it was incorrect that he had picked up four of them.
I did not identify a picture of Manu Sharma as one who fired a shot as he was not the person seen by me at the place of incident, Munshi further told the court in the statement.
It is incorrect to suggest that I had deliberately not identified the accused in the court yesterday, Munshi said.
UNI
