Bharati Dubey (BOMBAY TIMES; April 6, 2018)

Jodhpur Sessions Court yesterday convicted Salman Khan in the 1998 blackbuck poaching case. The actor was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment along with a penalty of `10,000 under Section 51 of the Wildlife (Protection) Act. He was reportedly accused of killing blackbucks in a village near Jodhpur, during the shooting of Hum Saath Saath Hain.

The co-accused in the case — Saif Ali Khan, Tabu, Sonali Bendre and Neelam Kothari — who were also present at the hearing yesterday, were acquitted. At the time of going to press, Salman was taken into custody, and was reportedly to be housed in the Jodhpur Central Jail. His bail application will be heard in court today.

When Chief Judicial Magistrate Dev Kumar Khatri pronounced Salman guilty in court, his sisters Alvira Agnihotri and Arpita Khan Sharma, who had accompanied him to the court along with his bodyguard Shera, broke down.

Before the actors reached the court, security had been beefed up, with officials deployed inside and outside the court complex. To avoid mishaps and misinformation, the entry of media and other lawyers inside the courtroom was restricted to only those associated with the case.

Back home in Mumbai, the actor’s fans were waiting for his return, but instead, the news reached them that he had been pronounced guilty.
-----------------------------
Excerpts from Salman Khan’s previous interviews with us

It becomes a media trial. Hum khud nahi baat kar sakte hain about any detail because it is sub judice. Lekin baaki saari duniya baat karti hai. Aapne do galat article likh diye mere baare mein toh judge sahib ne dekhe hain... Woh kahin na kahin influence kar jaate hain... In any high-profile celeb case in a small court, if you let the person get away, the media will say, how can you let him get away, he is powerful, he has connections, etc, etc. If the star is thrown inside prison, then also the media will start off, saying fans are upset, the case is not strong enough, you are just making an example out of him. So it’s a Catch-22 situation even for the authorities... We need people to take a stand

— In August 2009
---------------------------
Q: I heard from a cine source that for all the branding Salman has got because of the blackbuck case, the reality is that in a group of many people, all of whom were equally involved – or equally not involved – one guy chose to say, ‘I will carry it all on my head, you can walk off’. How true is that?

I don’t know the jungle. I am from Bombay. If you put me in a forest, or if you even put me in some street in Mumbai itself — Kandivali, Dharavi, Virar, Colaba — I may not know how to get back. You’re expecting me to go 30-40 km in the middle of the jungle, in the middle of the night, driving a gypsy, with a searchlight in my hand, without a driver, without anybody. While driving, find the animal, chase the animal, shoot the animal, put it back. So it’s night, I’m driving with one hand, I’m holding the searchlight with the other, and I’m shooting with which hand?

I don’t even know the route back to the hotel if I am in the middle of the jungle. There is nobody to ask at midnight. And, in the middle of the same forest, they have some 370 witnesses. Come on...

— In May 2011