The Hindu : New Delhi News : Sanjeev innocent: grandmother

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Saturday, Dec 08, 2007
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Sanjeev innocent: grandmother

Staff Reporter

NEW DELHI: Sumitra Nanda, grandmother of the BMW hit-and-run case prime accused Sanjeev Nanda, told a court here on Friday that her grandson was innocent.

Deposing before Additional Sessions Judge Vinod Kumar as the first defence witness, the 85-year-old said Sanjeev had told her at the time of his arrest that he was innocent and she had no reason to disbelieve him. The boy never lied to her, she told the court.

In her testimony that lasted nearly 15 minutes, Ms. Sumitra Nanda recalled that on January 10, 1999, she came to know from her family members that the police had arrested Sanjeev. She dismissed the prosecution counsel’s contention that she was making her statement in the court in a deliberate attempt to save her grandson.

Following her, Sanjeev submitted a list of witnesses he wanted examine. The prosecution challenged two names in that list. One was that of a television channel correspondent who had interviewed one Gauri Shankar, a Mumbaikar. Shankar had claimed that another eyewitness in the case, Sunil Kulkarni, who has been engaging in too many flip-flops in his testimony before the court, was in Mumbai and not Delhi on the day of the incident. The defence counsel said since they were not able to trace Shankar, they wanted to examine the reporter who interviewed him. The prosecution’s contention was that if the defence wanted to prove that Kulkarni was not in Delhi on that day, it should examine Shankar and not the correspondent.

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