Zinta stands tall, sticks to statement

The prosecution in the Bharat Shah trial finally received some co-operation today when actress Preity Zinta became the first Bollywood perso...

The prosecution in the Bharat Shah trial finally received some co-operation today when actress Preity Zinta became the first Bollywood personality to confirm that she had indeed received a threatening phone call demanding money.

Her statement puts an end to the trend set by 13 earlier witnesses from Bollywood, all declared hostile, who mostly denied they had ever told the police that they were victims of extortion threats from the underworld.

In the proceedings today when Public Prosecutor Rohini Salian told the court she was ‘disowning’ the witness — a formality before a prosecution witness is declared hostile — Zinta put on a hurt expression, thumped the edge of the witness box and lodged her ‘objection’. ‘‘I am an honest and decent Indian citizen,’’ she said.

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The trial against film financier Bharat Shah and director Nasim Rizvi relates to their alleged links with the underworld in film financing.

Supporting the prosecution in her deposition before the special MCOCA court, Zinta confirmed that an anonymous caller in 2000 had demanded that she cough up Rs 50 lakh.

While appearing before special Judge A P Bhangale, Zinta corroborated the statement she had then made to the police. Defence advocate Vibhav Krishna told The Indian Express that the prosecution had sought permission from the court to declare Zinta also a hostile witness.

However, the defence counsel objected since the witness was confirming the statement she had made to the police. (Declaring a witness hostile enables the prosecution to cross-examine him or her.) The court ruled that the witness would not be declared hostile since she had generally supported the case of the prosecution besides corroborating her earlier statement.

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In her statement to the police, Zinta had said that during the filming of Chori Chori Chupke Chupke, she had received a call from a man calling himself Razak, who demanded Rs 50 lakh. The caller had claimed to be a ‘bhai ka admi’, she had said. She had then dismissed it as a crank call. She had also stated that she had informed Sanjay Dutt about the call. (In a telephone conversation allegedly between Sanjay Dutt and Chhota Shakeel — which was intercepted by the Mumbai police — Dutt was heard protesting a threatening phone call made to Zinta. The tapes of these conversations were produced before the trial court last year.)

More than 50 witnesses have been examined in the trial, including 13 Bollywood personalities who all turned hostile. Among the 13 were Shah Rukh Khan, Salman Khan, Rakesh Roshan, Mahesh Manjrekar and Sanjay Gupta.