Hotel brawl: Malaika plays 'Saif', appears in court to get warrant cancelled

Mumbai: A Mumbai court on Wednesday cancelled the bailable warrant issued against actor Malaika Arora, a prosecution witness in the 2012 hotel brawl case involving Bollywood star Saif Ali Khan, after she appeared before it.

She was, however, dropped as a witness after prosecution submitted the actor “was not supporting their case”.

The court had issued the warrant after Arora failed to appear before it in the case, where Khan is accused of assaulting an NRI businessman at a five-star hotel in Mumbai 13 years ago.

The 51-year-old actor-model was a part of the group that had gone for dinner with Khan at the hotel when the alleged incident took place on February 22, 2012.

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The court had in April issued a bailable warrant against her for failing turn up for recording her testimony as a witness in the case.

The actor on Wednesday appeared before Chief Judicial Magistrate (Esplanade court) K S Zanwar. She then filed an application for cancellation of the warrant, which the court allowed.

Khan and two others were arrested following a complaint filed by the businessman, Iqbal Mir Sharma. The trio was later released on bail.

The 54-year-old Bollywood star was accompanied by his actor-wife Kareena Kapoor, her sister Karishma, Malaika, her sister Amrita Arora and some male friends at the time of the dinner.

According to police, when Sharma protested the raucous chatter of the filmstar and his friends, Khan allegedly threatened the businessman and subsequently punched him in the nose, fracturing it.

The NRI businessman also accused Khan and his friends of hitting his father-in-law Raman Patel, who was accompanying him.

Khan, on the other hand, has claimed Sharma made provocative statements and used abusive language against the women accompanying him, which led to the ruckus.

The matter will be next heard on August 22.

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