Mohammed Ali Shaikh, the sole approver for the Mumbai police and a witness to the conspiracy to kill the music magnate, had turned hostile on Wednesday, alleging that senior police officers had coerced him into falsely implicating music director Nadeem Saifee. Sheikh had earlier confessed that Kumar's murder was planned in Dubai in the presence of gangster Abu Salem and Nadeem.

However, at a press conference, Sharma said Shaikh's statement had been recorded after he took an oath on the holy Quran. Other senior police officers also maintained that though accused are sometimes beaten up to make them talk, Shaikh was not even slapped once, he said.

The police say the retraction is a deliberate, well-planned ploy by Nadeem, as his case is scheduled to come up for hearing on April20 in London. When asked whether it would weaken the prosecution's case, chief prosecutor in the Kumar case, Ujjwal Nikam, said, ``It will not affect the extradition case in London or in Mumbai. We have other witnesses and documentary evidences, including telephonic records of Nadeem's conversations with Abu Salem in Dubai.''