Salman's trial to resume from Nov 8

Mumbai: The trial in the hit-and-run case involving Salman Khan is all set to resume in a local court from November 8 on a regular basis.

The decision was taken after the concerned magistrate expressed concern over the delay in the examination of witnesses by the prosecution.

Observing that prosecution has taken considerable time to examine witnesses in the case, Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate D A Joshi decided to conduct the trial every Wednesday from November 8 in the post lunch session.

As per the chargesheet, there are 64 witnesses in all and the prosecution has examined only five of them in a span of three years from October 2003 to October 2006.

"In view of the large number of witnesses and considering the time taken by the prosecution for examining five witnesses it appears that the trial would not come to an end at least for next three years minimum," the magistrate noted in his order on last occasion.

The next witness to depose on November 8 would be among the four who were injured when the actor allegedly rammed his car into a bakery in suburban Bandra on September 28, 2002, killing one person and wounding four others.

Among the five witnesses who have already deposed are Ravindra Patil and Ramasray Pandey. Patil was Salman's bodyguard and had accompanied him when the actor met with the accident, while Pandey was sleeping in a shop adjacent to the accident site.

The third witness was the one who had prepared panchnama at the site of the accident and the fourth was Shaikh Ibrahim, cousin of the deceased, Narulla Salim Shaikh. The fifth, Mohammed Abdul Rauf Shaikh, deposed on June 29.

Earlier, Mohammed Shaikh, a witness, had contradicted his police statement during his deposition. Shaikh had told the court that he and few others were sleeping on the footpath when a car had rammed into the bakery injuring them.

While giving evidence, Shaikh had disowned a crucial portion of his police statement, saying he had not seen Salman getting down from the driver's seat of the car.

In a statement to police earlier, he said he had seen the Bollywood star getting down from the driver's seat after the mishap.

Shaikh had told the court he had heard people saying 'Salman car se bahar niklo' (Salman come out of the car) but he himself did not see the actor as he was underneath the vehicle, which rammed into the bakery.