After almost 20 years, actor Salman Khan has been found guilty of poaching a blackbuck in 1998, during a shoot for a film in Rajasthan. Salman has been sentenced to five years in jail and fined Rs 10,000. Saif Ali Khan, Tabu, Neelam and Sonali Bendre have been acquitted in the case. The trial of the case has been in progress for the last 20 years. Judge Dev Kumar Khatri had reserved the order after the final arguments on March 28. Arguments for sentencing are underway. Salman’s counsel is asking for a minimum sentence. “The court has convicted Khan under section 9/51 of the Wildlife (Protection) Act. All other accused have been acquitted of the charges that they faced,” said a counsel involved in the case.
A court in Jodhpur on Thursday convicted Salman Khan after finding him guilty of poaching two black bucks in a case dating back to 1998 and sentenced him to five years imprisonment along with a monetary fine of Rs 10,000. All other accused, including actors – Saif Ali Khan, Tabu, Neelam and Sonali Bendre – were acquitted of the charges they faced by the court of the chief judicial magistrate, Jodhpur Rural.
“The court has convicted Khan under section 9/51 of the Wildlife (Protection) Act. He has been sentenced to five years of imprisonment along with a monetary fine of Rs. 10,000. He will be taken to the Jodhpur Central Jail directly from the court,” prosecution counsel Mahipal Bishnoi told reporters.
The case against Salman Khan dated back to October 1998, when he was accused of killing two blackbucks in Kankani village in Jodhpur. Khan was charged under Section 51 of the Wildlife Protection Act and other actors – Saif Ali Khan, Tabu, Sonali Bendre and Neelam – were charged under section 51 read with section 149 (unlawful assembly) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). Salman Khan blackbuck verdict LIVE Updates
The final arguments in the case were completed on March 28 in the court of the chief judicial magistrate, Jodhpur Rural, Dev Kumar Khatri and the judgment was reserved for Thursday. Khan has earlier been acquitted in two poaching cases of chinkaras by the Rajasthan High Court in 2016. Last year, he was acquitted by the court of the chief judicial magistrate in Jodhpur on January 2017 in another case in which he was charged under the sections 3/25 and 3/27 of the
