Bhatti murder case: Perjury notice to witness

Mumbai, Jan 8: The special CBI court here, conducting trials in the Christopher Bhatti murder case involving multi-crore fake stamp paper kingpin Abdul Karim Telgi, has slapped perjury notices on a prosecution witness for giving false evidence on oath.

Additional sessions judge U D Salvi issued the notice to Abdul Wahid Abdul Karim Patvedar. During his deposition, Patvedar had told the court that Bhatti had met him in 2001. But the date of the meeting as cited by Patvedar was five days after Bhatti was murdered.

Patvedar had told the court that after meeting him, Bhatti had asked to borrow some money from him for meals. Patvedar had told the court that he had given Rs 500 to Bhatti at that time. The prosecution had declared him hostile and then cross examined him, in which it was proved that Patvedar had given false evidence.

Christopher Bhatti was Telgi's employee and looked after the latter's South India operations. He was allegedly murdered at the behest of Telgi since he had cheated the latter. Meanwhile, the matter has been adjourned till January 15 by the special court for further hearing.

UNI