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Shivani murder case witness turns hostile

By Our Staff Reporter

NEW DELHI SEPT. 22 .The Shivani Bhatnagar murder case today received a setback when one of the strongest prosecution witnesses refused to reiterate in the court what he had said during the investigation of the killing.

On the basis of the statement of Suresh Kukreja, a businessman, recorded by a Metropolitan Magistrate (MM), the Crime Branch of the Delhi police accused the former Inspector-General (Prison) of Haryana, R.K. Sharma, of borrowing Kukreja's cell phone and making and receiving calls to and from his co-accused a few days before Shivani, then Principal Correspondent of The Indian Express here, was murdered in her rented flat in Navkunj Apartments in Patparganj in East Delhi on January 23, 1999.

Deposing before the Additional Sessions Judge, J.M. Malik, Kukreja denied that he had ever lent his mobile instrument to Sharma, main accused in the case. When Kukreja made this statement, counsel for the Crime Branch, sought permission from the Judge to cross-examine him.

In the cross-examination, the witness said that he had not taken his mobile instrument when he had gone to meet Sharma at the Centre for Industrial Research in Pune, where the senior IPS officer had gone for a training.

When asked to explain the recording of his statement voluntarily before the MM, the witness said that he was under tremendous pressure from the Delhi police as the latter had threatened to arrest him.

He stated that he had taken out his SIM card having connection No. 9822028128 and given the instrument to a shop for repair as the handset had developed some sang.

When counsel for the city police asked him why he had kept his SIM card with him without the instrument for two long years, Kukreja said that he saw no reasons to throw it away.

He said that he had not deposited his instrument with the city police as he was not asked to do the same. The instrument was later burnt to ashes in a fire in the shop, the witness stated.

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