Blackbuck poaching case: Salman Khan sentenced to five years in jail, bail hearing tomorrow

A Jodhpur court sentenced Salman Khan Thursday to five years in jail for killing two blackbucks in 1998. The actor was also fined Rs 10,000.

All the others charged in the case - actors Saif Ali Khan, Tabu, Neelam, Sonali Bendre, and Dushyant Singh, a local - were acquitted.The judge gave them the benefit of the doubt.

Chief Judicial Magistrate Dev Kumar Khatri, while pronouncing his verdict, called Salman a 'habitual offender'. That he said was the reason why Salman was being convicted, while the others were given "the benefit of the doubt".

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He was held guilty under Section 9/51 of the Wildlife (Protection) Act.

Salman's lawyerssaid they would file for bail Friday morning; the hearing will take place at 10.30. Salman will however have to spend the night in Jodhpur Central Jail.

Salman will reportedly be spending Thursday night in barrack number two, where self-proclaimed "godman" Asaram Bapu is also lodged. Asaram has been in jail for over five years now for raping a schoolgirl at his ashram in 2013.

This will be his fourth stint in jail.Salman has earlier spent a total of 18 days in the jail in 1998, 2006 and 2007, all for cases of poaching.

Blackbuck poaching case: What happened in Kankani village, Rajasthan in 1998?

Final arguments in the case were completed on March 28, after which Chief Judicial Magistrate Dev Kumar Khatri had reserved his judgment.

The actor shot and killed the blackbucks, from the antelope family, in Kankani village near Jodhpur on the night of October 1, 1998 during the shooting of the film "Hum Saath Saath Hain", prosecution lawyer Mahipal Bishnoi said.

All the actors were in a Gypsy that night with Salman in the driving seat. He spotted a herd of blackbucks and killed two of them, said Bishnoi.

All the accused, some of them accompanied by their family members, were in the courtroom when the verdict was read out.

It has taken 20 years to get a verdict in the case.

The Bishnoi community has been at the forefront of the case, with them having got a report lodged in the first place. (Read more about the community that protects animals as their own.)