Mumbai:
Bollywood actor Amrita Arora Ladak on Saturday deposed as a witness before a court here in the case concerning Saif Ali Khan, who was accused of attacking an NRI businessman and his father-in-law at a five-star hotel in 2012.
The actor was part of the group that had gone for dinner with Khan at the hotel when the alleged incident took place on February 22, 2012.
She told the court that the hotel had allotted a separate enclosure to them, and they were dining there and having a good time.
In the meantime, the complainant came there and began shouting and abusing them, she said.
“We saw someone barging into our enclosure and, in a very loud, aggressive voice, told us to shut up and keep quiet. We all got shocked at what was happening,” she said, adding that actor Khan immediately stood up and apologised.
The man then left and they continued with their dinner, she said.
After a while, when Khan excused himself to go to the washroom, they heard loud voices, one of them being that of the Bollywood actor, Ladak told the court.
Moments later, they saw the man barging into their enclosure and hitting Khan, Ladak deposed.
Everyone then intervened and separated the two. That’s when the man started abusing them and threatening them with “dire consequences”, she added.
Khan was with Kareena Kapoor, her sister Karishma, Malaika Arora Khan, Amrita Arora Ladak and a few male friends at the hotel when the brawl broke out with NRI businessman Iqbal Sharma.
According to police, when Sharma protested the raucous chatter of the actor and his friends, Saif allegedly threatened him and subsequently punched Sharma in the nose, fracturing it.
The NRI businessman also accused Saif and his friends of hitting his father-in-law Raman Patel.
However, Saif had maintained that Sharma made provocative statements or rather used abusive language against women with him and this led to the ruckus.
Saif and his two friends – Shakeel Ladak and Bilal Amrohi – have been charge-sheeted under section 325 (assault) of the Indian Penal Code.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
