The driver of the vehicle that actor Salman Khan used during an alleged 1998 poaching incident in Rajasthan resurfaced on Wednesday and told NDTV he had not testified against him as he feared for his family. Harish Dulani told the TV channel that he had been “living in fear”, two days after Khan was acquitted by the Rajasthan High Court in two hunting cases. Dulani said he maintains his statement from 1998 that Khan “got off the car and shot the deer”.

Dulani said that his father was threatened after he gave his original statement to a magistrate court, so he moved out of his hometown. He added that he would have given further evidence had the police offered him protection. Justice Nirmaljit Kaur of the Rajasthan High Court had said, while overturning the actor’s conviction, that Dulani’s statements could not be considered as he had gone missing.

On Monday, Khan was acquitted of all charges in connection with the 1998 blackbuck and chinkara poaching cases. The actor had moved the Rajasthan High Court against a lower court verdict that had sentenced him to one year's jail term in the blackbuck case and five years' imprisonment in the chinkara case.