Mumbai: Film actor Sanjay Dutt on March 7 informed a special court that he did not know Pakistan-based gangster Chhota Shakeel and also denied his alleged links with him.

Deposing as a witness in the case of alleged Bollywood nexus with underworld, Dutt also denied his alleged telephonic talk with Shakeel on November 14, 2000 from a hotel in Nasik.

Dutt, however, admitted that he had gone to Nasik on that day along with producer Sanjay Gupta, director Mahesh Manjrekar and financier Harish Sughandh.

The actor told designated judge A P Bhangale that he did not remember speaking to anyone on telephone on November 14, 2000, because he had consumed liquor.

Prosecutor Rohini Salian then played an audio-cassette in the court which contained the alleged conversation Dutt and three others had with Shakeel.

Hearing the cassette, Dutt told the court that he could not recognise any of the voices including that of his own.

However, he recognised his voice in another cassette which police had recorded as a sample to match with the one in the alleged conversation.

Asked if he knew about the alleged threats to actress Preity Zinta from a Chhota Shakeel gangster, he said his secretary Pankaj Kharbanda had told him about it.

Dutt stuck to his statement recorded by police on February 4 on the alleged conversation he and others had with Shakeel. Hence he was not declared hostile.

In the statement to police, Dutt denied having talked to Shakeel saying he could not remember as he was under the influence of liquor.

PTI