Bollywood superstar Salman Khan shot a legal notice to news broadcasting agency Asian News International (ANI) and demanded an unconditional apology for publishing an objectionable article linking him to underworld don, Dawood Ibrahim.
In the legal notice, Khan stated that ANI had published an article which said that the two accused men involved in his house firing case, were at the risk of threats from the D-Company, given the actor's 'links' with the underworld don and his gang.
The legal notice also pointed out that ANI shared a byte of an advocate named Amit Mishra, who is representing the two accused - Vicky Gupta and Sagar Pal. In the byte, Mishra stated, "The victim (Salman Khan) has known relations with a gangster, perhaps he wants to get the accused killed. This is the allegation of the accused (Vicky Gupta and Sagar Pal). We’ve written to the Central government, Maharashtra and Bihar governments for their protection."
"Our client (Khan) denies all the allegations made by Mishra against him in the Impugned Article and our client states that the allegations therein are absolutely false, baseless, malicious, grossly defamatory/derogatory, misleading, damaging and are made with an intent to malign the image and goodwill of our client before the public at large, which our client has painstakingly developed by him over the years. Our client states that in fact he is a victim of the criminal act that was perpetrated upon him by certain individuals," the notice read.
Khan's legal team further stated that the article is a "tactic to gather sympathy from the public at large, and to distract their attention from the matter at hand".
Khan thus demanded an unconditional apology from ANI and also from Mishra, and added that it must be published in significant newspapers with 48 hours. He also asked the agency to pull down the article and Mishra's video.
