If we talk about Bollywood superstars a very familiar name comes to our mind I.e. Salman Khan. With his name, we can think of his Being Human Foundation that works for so many good causes, especially for underprivileged children. So it brings him into a benevolent frame. But there are so many questions about his benevolence.
In early 2002, Salman Khan had filed a complaint about threatening calls from the underworld. The police realized that there was a threat to the actor's life. So they appointed a 24 years old constable Ravindra Patil as Salman's unarmed bodyguard to protect him everywhere.
On 27th September Salman khan and Kamal khan went to the Rain Bar. They left the Galaxy Apartment of Bandra. They got into the car with a constable Patil. Patil asked him to drive. But Salman ignores him. Salman had the steering. After that, they got ready to leave and went to the J W Marriott Hotel. Salman was in the driver seat again. Ravindra was seated in the front next to Salman. And kamal khan was in the back seat again. Ravindra again asks him for driving but Salman didn't give him attention. He was totally drunk. It is about 2.15 am. Now Salman's car was in st. Andrews road of Mumbai. His bodyguard Patil warns him about the speed before reached Junction Hills Road. They had to take a right turn but Salman couldn't control his motor car. His Land Cruiser dashed with American Express Cleaner's shutter. The car climbed 3 stairs up and badly hit the shutter of the shop. It broke the shutter and went inside about three-and-a-half feet. Plus Salman drove his Land Cruiser over 5 pavement dwellers. He was so stunned that people were crying under his wheels. So shocked that he fled, instead of taking victims to the hospital. Salman and kamal leave that situation there. The noise got slower after seeing Patil's I-card. He called the police control room. Within Few minutes Bandra police reached there. Police rescue the 4 injured and a dead body and send then to the Bhabha hospital nearby. Narula was the person who died. After that Patil filed a complaint against Salman Khan on drunken drive case. This is how Ravindra Patil explained the whole incident about that night.
But Salman had present a different story. According to him, he was gone for the Rain Bar with kamal khan and bodyguard constable Ravindra Patil. But the Land cruiser's steering was in the hand of the driver Altaf. Salman was next to the driver. Kamal and Patil were in the back seats. When they were going to the J W Marriott Hotel Altaf said that he was not well so he called another driver Ashok Singh. Until Ashok had reached Salman waited in the car. After Ashok came they went to Salman's Galaxy apartment. In the Junction Hills Road, the speed was about 40-50 kmph. At that time a wheel of the car was cracked. Salman was shocked at what was happening. Ashok tried to control the car by putting a brake on it. But by then the Land Cruiser climbed 3 stairs up and destroyed the shutter of American Express Laundry.
Salman's story differed from Patil's. Patil was an eye witness to that accident. He decided Salman's fate, and only Patil knew if Salman was drunk, speeding, and had been warned by Patil to slow down. All these were true, but Salman denied it all. Other witnesses changed their narrative and soon turned hostile, but not Patil. This despite claiming to have faced pressure to change his statement from Salman's lawyer.
On 1st October 2002, after the receipt of Salman's blood test report, Patil gave a statement before a magistrate saying that the actor had taken drinks on the I'll fated day and he had warned him not to drive rashly or else he would meet with an accident but Salman did not pay heed to his advice.
Later the Bombay (Mumbai) High Court doubted the evidence of Ravindra Patil, observing that he was "wholly unreliable" and sent him to the jail for 5 years. Because the judge observed that the evidence of Patil was doubtful because he had made improvements in his version later when his statement was recorded. After released from jail the result of torture showed in his physical appearance. He was to be hunted by TB.
In July 2015, Amit Desai, a senior advocate made submissions before Justice A R Joshi of the Bombay high court, which heard the actor's appeal against his conviction and a five-year sentence for culpable homicide not amounting to murder for killing one person on September 28, 2002, after his car rammed into a Bandra laundry. Desai's arguments were that Patil had in his cross-examination by the actor's earlier lawyers before a Bandra Magistrate in 2006 effectively denied his own statement about Salman being drunk. So his deposition holds no evidentiary value against Khan, Desai said. Patil died in 2007.
The last time when someone really considered Ravindra Patil as a “Human Being” was when he was fighting for life in a Municipal hospital, suffering from a strain of tuberculosis that was drug-resistant. He was possibly coughing out his last breath on the cold hospital floor, alone. His family had cut him out of their life, and they didn’t even claim or collect his body – they simply didn’t care.
On May 6, Khan was convicted on the charge of culpable homicide and drunken driving and sentenced to five years in prison. However, hours later, Bombay HC suspended the sentence and released the actor on bail pending the hearing of his appeal. On June 15, an appeal hearing at the High Court was adjourned till July 1 over a 'paper book' i.e. compilation of evidence and documents which was served to both the sides by the court that were incomplete.
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