One more witness in the H S Sabharwal murder case on Wednesday turned hostile and claimed he had not seen anybody manhandling the college teacher, becoming the fifth person to retract statements given to police.

Naval Kishore, peon of Madhav College, told a court in Ujjain that he had not seen those who attacked the professor as at the time of the incident the principal had sent him for some work.

He said the students got agitated following "false" disclosure by principal L M Nath that Sabharwal was behind the cancellation of the college union polls on August 26, 2006.

Following the refusal of the peon to identify the ABVP leaders arrested in the murder case, District and Sessions Judge Anil Kumar Sharma declared him hostile.

Sabharwal died on August 26, 2006 when he was allegedly mobbed by ABVP activists after the cancellation of Madhav College students union eletions.