But he told the court that he did not remember if a team of Gujarat police had visited his dhaba in 2005 and that he had seen Prajapati in their vehicle. (Representational image/Pixabay)

Mumbai: A Dhaba owner on Wednesday appeared before the special CBI court as a witness in connection with the fake encounter of Tulsiram Prajapati and was declared hostile since he retracted from his statement. The witness had earlier said that he had seen Prajapati in police car. Prajapati was an aide of Sohrabuddin Shaikh and also an eyewitness to Shaikh’s fake encounter.

The court has examined 41 witnesses so far and out of them around 27 witnesses have been declared hostile. The trial judge had banned the media from covering this case the day the trial begun and the dhaba owner is the first witness after Justice Revati Mohite-Dere of the Bombay high court lifted the ban.

On Wednesday, when public prosecutor B. P. Raju started asking questions, the Dhaba owner confirmed that he used to run a dhaba till 2013 at Pune and many policemen from various states used to halt at his dhaba en rout to their destination. But he told the court that he did not remember if a team of Gujarat police had visited his dhaba in 2005 and that he had seen Prajapati in their vehicle.

Advocate Raju told the court that the witness in his statement had told the police that he had seen Prajapati in the police vehicle but has now retracted his statement and hence he should be declared hostile.