Injecting a new element in the Jessica Lall murder case, noted lawyer Ram Jethmalani on Wednesday claimed that it was a policeman who shot at the model in a South Delhi bar-cum-restaurant and not the prime accused Manu Sharma or co-accused Amardeep Singh Gill. Resuming his arguments before a bench of the Delhi High Court a day after it had rejected the plea to excuse itself from the case, he alleged that the prosecution had manufactured evidence to falsely implicate Sharma in the case.
Appearing before Justices R S Sodhi and P K Bhasin, Jethmalani said that the prosecution witness Deepak Bhojwani was planted by police to give a statement against Sharma.
Countering the prosecution's argument that Sharma had introduced himself to Bhojwani during a brief conversation few hours before the incident, Jethmalani said Bhojwani was brought into picture by the Delhi police to save its own policeman who had really shot at Jessica on the intervening night of 28-29 April, 1999.
Till May 6, 1999 the investigating agency was not able to make up it's mind about the real culprit, the police was looking for someone who was present in the party hosted by Bina Ramani at Qutub Colonade and close to Jessica's family and could give a statement against Sharma, he argued.
Finally police made Bhojwani the first prosecution witness and recorded his statement after putting words in his mouth. They told him to say that he had an interaction with the prime accused, who introduced himself as Manu Sharma, he argued.
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