If you google “electric sitar” then you ‘ll find over 200.000 hits referring to the Coral “electric sitar” which actually is an early solid body guitar that sounds like a sitar. Vincent Bell invented a number of electric guitar models for Danelectro and Coral. He designed perhaps the first electric 12-string guitar, and invented the electric sitar in 1967, using it on such hits as “Green Tambourine” by the Lemon Pipers, “Band of Gold” by Freda Payne, and “Heartbreaker” by Gene Pitney. See this funny early ad:

Also wikipedia writes this, but it is and remains a guitar, made for guitarists. It is not a sitar, isn’t it…?

Read also an interesting article “West meets East” by Frederick W. Harrison about how the sitar came to be heard in the western pop music.