Sultan Masood appeared as a prosecution witness before the CBI court, conducing trail in the last year's murder of the activist, and was cross-examined by two defence counsels for over three-and-half hours.
He was in the house when Shehla was shot dead outside her residence in Bhopal on August 16, 2011.
Sultan, who deposed before Judge Anupam Srivastava, was first examined by CBI senior public prosecutor Hemant Shukla and subsequently crossed-examined by A J Bhojwani and Sunil Srivastava, the counsels for main accused Zahida Pervez and Sabha Farooqui respectively.
During cross-examination, Sultan said her daughter had friendship with many persons, including BJP leaders Dhruvnarayan Singh (MLA) and Tarun Vijay (Rajya Sabha MP).
When insisted by defence counsels to define her ties with the duo, Sultan said Shehla had "cordial" relations with Singh and 'ghanishth mitrata' (close friendship) with Vijay.
Singh and Vijay's names had cropped up during the CBI probe into the murder case, but the agency gave them clean chit and their names does not figure in the charge sheet.
Asked whether he approached or called Singh after Shehla's murder, Sultan said he did call him but the MLA expressed inability to come as he was in a temple in Ujjain.
To another query, Sultan said Singh used to often come to their house for dinner or lunch. But he had not visited her for more than one-and-half years before Shehla's murder. (More)
