Denying the prosecution’s claim that accused and actor Salman Khan’s car was speeding at 90 to 100 kmph at the time of the 2002 hit-and-run accident which killed one and injured four persons, the actor said on Thursday that prosecution claim was a “cold-blooded lie”.
“If the car was moving at such a high speed, how come there was no injury to anyone sitting in the car or to any internal parts of the car? Not even the bonnet of the car was pressed. Even airbags weren't deployed. Are we to believe then that the car's speed was 90 to 100 kmph?” advocate Shrikant Shivade, representing Mr. Khan, said.
He also claimed that the absence of tyre marks at the spot of the accident proved that the car wasn't speeding.
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Alleging shoddy evidence by the experts, he launched a full-throttled offensive against them. He targeted the chemical analyst and the motor vehicle inspector, and said they should themselves be checked at the hospital. “He (the motor vehicle inspector) said the tyres were in good condition. Even a deflated tyre was in good condition for him,” Mr. Shivade said, adding that the inspector had no knowledge about imported vehicles.
He said that if the motor vehicle inspector knew about imported cars, and if he would have checked the vehicle on the day of the accident, the tool kit would have shown all the defects when attached to the engine processing unit. “But no modern tools and mechanisms are used to test the vehicles because then we won't be able to implicate anyone falsely,” Mr. Shivade said.
Leveling allegations against the motor vehicle inspector, he further said, “A person who has studied second standard can't be made to take B.Sc. training. He (the motor vehicle inspector) is a novice in the field of imported cars. He has never seen them, and he is giving opinion about their defects.”
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“We have all super fast experts. The entire examination of the car including its test drive for half a kilometre on the main road during rush hour was done within 20 minutes. Salman's medical examination was conducted in five minutes,” he said.
Casting aspersions on the evidence of the chemical analyst, he said there was huge possibility that Mr. Khan’s blood sample was fermented. “The man who is on the verge of retirement and did the test a thousand times, says he doesn’t know what ‘modified diffusion oxification’ method means,” Mr. Shivade said.
He will continue his final arguments on Friday.