New Delhi, April 5: Bollywood actor Salman Khan was on Thursday sentenced to five years in jail and fined IRs 10, 000 after a Jodhpur court convicted him for the killing of two blackbucks in the two-decade-old poaching case.
Fellow actors and co-accused Saif Ali Khan, Sonali Bendre, Tabu and Neelam Kothari were given the benefit of the doubt and acquitted along with Dushyant Singh, a local from the area. The quantum of punishment will be pronounced later in the day.
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The 52-year-old Salman could face up to six years in prison and can seek bail from a sessions court. However, if his sentence is less than three years, he can seek bail from the Jodhpur court itself.
Salman was charged for killing the blackbucks, an endangered species of antelope protected under the Wildlife Protection Act, in February 2006, while shooting for the film ‘Hum Saath Saath Hain’ in 1998. Saif, Sonali, Tabu and Neelam, who co-starred in the movie, and Singh, was also accused in the case.
The trial in the case began in the chief judicial magistrate court in May 2013. At least 28 witnesses from the prosecution side were produced for examination.
Final arguments of the case were completed in the trial court on March 28, after which chief judicial magistrate Dev Kumar Khatri had reserved the judgment for Thursday.
The conviction isn’t Salman’s first brush with the law. In 2015, the Bombay high court overturned his conviction in a hit-and-run case in which he was accused of running over a group of people sleeping on a city sidewalk, killing one and injuring four.
