May 14th, mark this day!

On a chilly winter morning of January 10, 1999 at 4.30 am, seven people on Lodhi Road were hit by a car.
It took few minutes for the car to mow down these people in a stretch that is barely 50 metres long, so one can imagine how out of control the car was.
Official estimates later said the car was swinging erratically across the road at 100 kilometres per hour.
After hitting the people, the car drove away. While three men died immediately, three others died in the hospital and one survived.
At around 9 am the same day, the police called in a videographer to record the evidence they were uncovering.
The 30-minute long film is available exclusively to NDTV. The investigating officer tracked an oil leak from the site of the accident to a house, roughly a kilometre away in one of Delhi's most expensive neighbourhoods Golf Links.
The house showed the same oil traces in its driveway, where at the end of the trail was a battered 7-series BMW.
The film, along with the initial testimony of key witnesses, led the police to this conclusion: the hit and run was caused by three young drunk men.
After the accident, they raced to Sidharth Gupta's house and washed the car in a desperate attempt to destroy evidence. The three men charged with culpable homicide are:
Sidharth Gupta, son of a Delhi's financier, to whose house the BMW was brought after the accident.
Manik Kapoor, whose family is into hotel business, was in the passenger seat that night.
The alleged driver was Sanjeev Nanda, son of an international arms dealer and grandson of former Chief of Naval Staff Admiral Nanda.
While the film was being shot by the police, the three young men were arrested. As the police collected evidence, tension ran high.
The three boys later admitted to being in an accident but insisted it is not the one they were arrested for.
But those claims were hard to buy, given the cold hard facts captured by the police on film.

These included blood stains on the back tyre of the car, human flesh on the car's bonnet and wheels, blood stains on the steering wheel which will later be matched to stains on Sanjeev Nanda's shirt, a shattered license plate recovered from Lodhi Road.
This film was submitted in 2003 as evidence, and with every key witness having turned hostile, the police believe this evidence is critical.
''Prosecution has a very strong case. Video tape will play as very strong circumstantial evidence,'' said Vikas Arora, Public Prosecutor.
But lawyers for Sanjeev Nanda point out that the film was submitted a whopping four years after the accident took place and question its credibilty and its relevance.

Case collapse

The evidence should have nailed the accused but the only survivor of that incident told the court that it was not a BMW but a truck, which rammed into a waiting group at Lodhi Road.
It was this statement by the only survivor in the accident that spelt freedom for Nanda scion Sanjeev Nanda and virtually ended the prosecution's hope in the case.
But now for the first time, NDTV has spoken to key players in this case who said that money changed hands.
The statements are recorded on hidden camera and are not being shown to protect their identity, though NDTV has it as evidence.
''Eyewitnesses changed their statements under pressure. They even went to the extent of changing statement that it was truck and not a car,'' key player told NDTV.
In, fact another key player, who is still involved in case, says he was offered money. He said ''Everybody was bribed in this case.''
This is what the court seemed to think too. In 1999, the court said that what should have been an open and shut case had suddenly become weak. The court also said: ''The main witnesses are turning hostile blatantly under the influence of money.''
The only man who had not changed his statement was Sunil Kulkarni, a businessman from Mumbai who had just happened to be at the spot.
Yet, in another strange twist to the case, the prosecution dropped their own witness alleging that he had been bought over by the defence.
Again, the source told NDTV: ''I always wanted that he should speak in the court. He should have been given one chance, it would not have made any difference even if he had retracted his statement in the court because the statement he had made earlier in front of the magistrate would still stand. He wrote a letter to me saying that he wants to record his statement in the court. I informed my senior officials and gave the letter but they refused.''


Experts say Sunil Kulkarni should have been allowed to record his statement in the court in 1999. Had he retracted from his statement which was recorded in front of the magistrate, then he could have been booked for perjury.
The prosecution also slipped on other counts.
When the police tracked down the BMW, there were bloodstains on the steering wheel. Matching these to Nanda's blood would have been a major breakthrough in investigations.
And soon after his arrest, the police did take a sample from Nanda, but they only checked it for alcohol content. Now they claim it's too old to determine blood type.
''The sample which we took earlier is putrefied and cannot be used to detect his blood group,'' said Vikas Arora, Public Prosecutor.
In fact, a month ago, the court reprimanded the police for failing to collect another blood sample from Nanda. It said it would order Nanda to give one provided the prosecution admitted:
That either the Investigating officer is incompetent to use his powers under section 53 CrPC.
Or the investigating officer is afraid to lay hands upon the accused for any reasons.
Or the investigating officer is mixed with the accused persons.
But despite the court's strictures, one month later the police is yet to collect Nanda's blood sample.
What's even more surprising is that neither the court nor the police have mentioned a DNA match, which could be established even with the old blood sample.
The statements made to NDTV by people who have never spoken before, establish clearly a money trail, but is justice for sale?
All hopes are now on one key witness Sunil Kulkarni, a passerby who saw the accident. The prosecution never gave him a chance to speak. Now the court has called him on May 14 and there may still be hope ahead.
Source of Article is MSN India.
Sunil Kulkarni, you are my hero. My best wishes to you and your family. I will pray to God to give you strength.

Regards,
Ajj Kaim