Actor Sanjay Dutt on Friday informed a special court in Mumbai that he did not know Pakistan-based gangster Chhota Shakeel.
Deposing as a witness in the case of alleged Bollywood-underworld nexus, Dutt also denied his alleged telephonic talk with Shakeel on November 14, 2000, from a hotel in Nasik.
Dutt, however, admitted that he had gone to Nasik on that day along with producer Sanjay Gupta, director Mahesh Manjrekar and financier Harish Sughandh.
The actor told designated Judge A P Bhangale that he did not remember speaking to anyone on telephone because he had consumed liquor that day.
Prosecutor Rohini Salian then played an audiocassette in the court, which contained the alleged conversation Dutt and three others had with Shakeel.
Dutt then told the court that he could not recognise any of the voices, including that of his own.
However, he recognised his voice in another cassette, which the police had recorded as a sample to match with the one in the alleged conversation.
Asked if he knew about the alleged threats to actress Preity Zinta from Shakeel, he said his secretary Pankaj Kharbanda had told him about it.
Dutt stuck to his statement recorded by the police on February 4 this year. Hence he was not declared hostile.
