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Munde's cross examination complete

Staff Reporter

MUMBAI: In the Pramod Mahajan murder trial, defence completed the cross-examination of BJP leader Gopinath Munde and prosecution started the examination of his wife, Pradnya Munde. Pradnya Munde on Wednesday told the court that she was a real sister of both the deceased and the accused and so she would not lie and the lawyers should take her statement seriously.

Earlier during the cross-examination of Gopinath Munde, defence counsel Harshad Ponda asked him why he had not informed the police about the threatening SMS and his opinion about Pravin's motive. Mr. Munde replied that he was extremely tied up from April 22, 2006 when Pramod Mahajan was shot to April 27 when his statement was recorded, as he was the only elder member of the family. He said after the three and a half hour long operation on Pramod Mahajan he was busy organising 19 bottles of blood and could not tell the police some facts like the threatening SMS.

He denied the defence counsel's suggestions that the family decided to give a statement against Pravin after a joint discussion and also decided to mention the threatening SMS several months later. Earlier advocate Ponda had asked him if he knew the procedures regarding informing the police about all facts and knowledge about an incident.

Special public prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam asked Pradnya Munde to narrate the sequence of events on April 22. She said that day she opened the door in the morning and Rekha Mahajan told her, "That wretched man shot him."

She immediately called out to Gopinath Munde and both Rekha and Pradnya ran upstairs. Pradnya told the court that she told Pramod Mahajan, who was bleeding, that everything would be ok.

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