A senior journalist in the ongoing trial of the murder of scribe Jyotirmoy Dey has been declared a hostile witness after he refused to support the prosecution’s case.
Extradited gangster Chhota Rajan is the main accused in the murder of J Dey, who was shot dead by motorcycle-borne assailants in Mumbai in June 2011.
"We have declared (journalist) Sunil Mehrotra hostile in the case as he did not support the prosecution case," said special public prosecutor Pradeep Gharat.
In his statement to the CBI, Mehrotra said that after his arrest, accused Satish Kalia had allegedly told him that he would not have killed Dey had he known he was a journalist.
However, during his deposition in the court on Wednesday during the trial, Mehrotra said that the conversation did not occur.
Mehrotra told PTI that Kalia never spoke to reporters, and that after recording his statement, the CBI never gave him a copy and he never signed the statement.
CBI twisted my statement.Sunil Mehrotra, Witness
The journalist added that the CBI had surrounded him and he was scared. In a statement after his deposition in court, he said that Kalia had allegedly said these things to the police and not to reporters as the CBI was claiming.
According to the CBI, Rajan had the senior crime reporter killed over a few articles by the scribe that had showed the gangster in poor light.
(With inputs from PTI)
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