Days after the Rajasthan High Court acquitted Bollywood actor Salman Khan in two chinkara poaching cases, a key witness in the case made an appeal seeking police protection.
Citing threats to his life and his family, Harish Dulani faxed a letter to the state home minister Gulab Chand Kataria seeking protection.
In the letter sent to Kataria through his advocate Anil Gaur, Dulani mentioned that unidentified people have been spotted around his house since the high court acquitted Khan.
In the letter, Dulani said he was the key witness in the case against Khan and after his examination in the court, his family has started receiving threats.
“After that, I left Jodhpur without informing anybody for some time. Now since the verdict of the high court has come, I have been constantly receiving threats by unknown persons, who have been keeping a close watch on me and my family,” the letter said.
He also mentioned his poor financial condition due to the lack of a permanent job and that he has been surviving on small jobs, which too he has been finding difficult to carry on because of stress.
Gaur, however, said that Dulani had hired him as his advocate after the judgements by the trial courts had been pronounced and he was served notice for giving false evidence in the court on April 18, 2006.
“Since then, he has been regularly appearing in the court for hearing in this case barring a few exemptions, but he did not mention anything about any threat or the case against Khan,” he said.
Dulani, who was driving the jeep used by Khan during the alleged chinkara hunt in Jodhpur in 1998, had maintained that he had not come forward earlier due to threats to his life.
