Two days after the Rajasthan High Court acquitted Bollywood actor Salman Khan in two Chinkara poaching cases, a key witness in the case, today made an appeal to state Home Minister Gulab Chand Kataria seeking police protection.
Citing threat to his life and his family from unknown persons, Harish Dulani faxed a letter to the home minister seeking protection to him and his family.
In the letter sent to Kataria through his advocate Anil Gaur, Dulani mentioned that some unidentified persons have been keeping watch on him and his family members seen around his house since the high court pronounced its order acquitting Khan.
In the letter, Dulani said he was the key witness of the case against Khan and after his chief examination in the court, his family has started receiving threats, following which he left Jodhpur for some time.
"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 has also mentioned about his poor financial condition in absence of any permanent job and that he has been surviving on petty jobs, which too he had been finding difficult to carry on because of stress.
Gaur, however, said that Dulani had engaged 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.
