A Jodhpur court on Thursday sentenced actor Salman Khan to five years in jail in the blackbuck poaching case. The sessions court, which also levied a penalty of Rs 10,000 on him, will hear Khan’s bail application on Friday.
The prosecutor had applied for the maximum jail term of six years under the Wildlife Protection Act.
Khan was made to undergo a medical test and then lodged in ward number 2 of Jodhpur Central Jail, ANI reported. “We will give him a jail uniform tomorrow,” Deputy Inspector General of Police (Jail) Vikram Singh said. “Multiple-layer security has been put up for his ward.”
Earlier in the day, the court had convicted Khan of hunting the endangered blackbuck in Rajasthan’s Kankani village while shooting the film Hum Saath Saath Hain in 1998.
Khan’s co-actors were also named in the case as they were in the vehicle he had used while hunting the animal. However, the court acquitted Saif Ali Khan, Sonali Bendre, Neelam and Tabu in the two-decade-old case.
This is the last of three poaching cases and an Arms Act case against Salman Khan from the 1998 incidents. The actor has spent time in a Jodhpur jail twice in connection with the case.
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