We are not paying any compensation to victim's family: Salman Khan

The Khan family was not paying any compensation to the 70-year-old woman who was killed by a Land Cruiser owned by Arbaaz Khan as she had been disowned by her family, the filmmaker's brother and Bollywood star Salman Khan said Monday.

"The accident happened by mistake. I spoke to my driver and he said when he was driving, he saw something like a black polythene bag on the road, but it was the lady who was completely in black. I would request everyone not to sleep on the road," Salman told reporters at their Galaxy apartment home in Bandra here.

"We are not paying any compensation to the family members of the victim as we got to know that her family had disowned her," he added.

The incident occurred around 11 p.m. Sunday near St. Andrew's Church when the vehicle was headed towards the home of the Khans at Bandstand.

The woman has been identified as Chandra Bala, police said. She was rushed to the Bhabha Hospital by a police constable and some autorickshaw drivers in the vicinity but died from her injuries.

Salman's sibling Sohail Khan said that he was "shocked" when he came to know about the accident.

"I was at home. I did not know what was happening. Only driver was there in the car. The car was coming home and they did not know who the family was," he told reporters.

Sohail also said that "the news has been hyped a lot".

"Instead of focusing on who was in the car, people should focus on the fact that a women died. I got to know about this incident after an hour. This accident happened by mistake," he added.

The car was being driven by Dhananjay Pimpale. A top police official supervising the investigation said Pimpale came and reported the accident case to the police station shortly afterwards.

"We have recorded his statement and also the statements of two eyewitnesses who were present at the scene of the accident. We shall record the statements of the vehicle owner (Arbaaz Khan) and Sohail Khan (who has been using the vehicle)," the official told media-persons.

He confirmed that nobody else was present in the vehicle and also the fact that Pimpale was not intoxicated at the time of the accident.

"However, we shall send his blood samples for analysis to further confirm this," the official added.

Pimpale was later presented before a magistrate here Monday afternoon.

After a brief hearing, Pimpale was remanded in police custody till July 9, but soon afterwards, he applied for and secured a bail on an amlount of Rs.10,000, his lawyer Zameer Khan told media persons

Meanwhile, Salim Khan - the father of Arbaaz, Bollywood superstar Salman Khan and filmmaker Sohail Khan - has expressed regret over the death of the destitute woman.

"It was most unfortunate. The woman suddenly came in front of the vehicle and fell. The driver immediately applied the brakes and reported the matter to the police," Salim Khan told.

He claimed that the woman, apparently frail, was not "crushed" as claimed in some quarters, but fell near the vehicle.

Salim Khan castigated the media and said that instead of finding out the whereabouts of the poor woman and her family or survivors, the focus was more on his celebrity family -- whether they were inside the vehicle and who owned the vehicle.

He added that the vehicle belonged to Arbaaz but was being used temporarily by Sohail. No family member was present in the vehicle at the time of the accident, he said.