Mumbai--A judge will rule Wednesday whether Bollywood superstar Salman Khan was guilty of killing a homeless man in a 2002 hit-and-run crash after a night out drinking, before trying to get his driver to take the blame.
Khan, star of blockbusters such as "Dabangg" (Fearless), is accused of driving his SUV into a group of homeless people sleeping near a Mumbai bakery after spending the evening in an upmarket bar, killing one of them.
If convicted of culpable homicide, the 49-year-old faces a lengthy spell behind bars, a verdict that would bring the career of one of the Indian movie industry's biggest box-office draws to a shuddering halt.
A string of prosecution witnesses, including survivors of the crash, have testified that Khan was at the wheel when his vehicle crashed at speed into a group of half a dozen men sleeping on the street in September 2002.
The trial began in earnest last year after a series of court hearings and legal hold-ups.
When Khan finally took the stand, he pleaded not guilty and told the court that his driver was responsible for mounting the pavement in the upmarket suburb of Bandra West.
A constable attached to Khan's security detail said in his statement to police that the drunk actor lost control of the car while driving at about 90 kilometres (55 miles) an hour.
"The people were sleeping on the footpath. Salman and (his cousin) Kamaal ran away from the spot," the constable, who died in 2007 of tuberculosis, said.
One of the sleeping labourers injured in the accident said in his statement that "Salman was so drunk he fell. He stood but he fell again and then he... ran away."
AFP
