NEW DELHI - Status bad boy tampaknya masih tersemat dalam sosok Salman Khan . Di tengah kesibukannya syuting dan promosi film terbarunya, Salman harus menghadapi fakta bahwa dirinya telah dinyatakan bersalah dan dihukum 5 tahun penjara.
Baca Juga: Nyanyikan Lagu untuk Katrina Kaif, Salman Khan Jadi Sorotan
Pada Kamis (5/4/2018), kepolisian India menahan Salman setelah pengadilan India menyatakan sang aktor bersalah dalam kasus perburuan satwa liar, antelope. Salman dan sejumlah rekannya dituduh telah membunuh satwa langka tersebut dalam perburuan pada 1 Oktober 1998 silam.
Salman dijatuhi hukuman berdasar pasal 51 Undang-Undang Perlindungan Satwa Liar. Sementara rekan-rekannya yang lain menghadapi tuntutan pasal 51 dan 149 berdasar KUHP India. Maksimal hukuman berdasar pasal 51 tersebut adalah 6 tahun.
Dua dekade silam, Salman berburu di daerah desa Kankani, Jodhpur bersama Saif Ali Khan, Sonali Bendre, Neelam dan Tabu. Dalam perburuan tersebut, Salman dituduh telah membunuh dua antelope yang kala itu berada dalam status satwa langka.
Kuasa hukum Salman berniat mengajukan masa percobaan atas hukuman yang dijatuhkan pada aktor 52 tahun itu. Apalagi kuasa hukum Salman melihat adanya celah dalam putusan yang dibuat hakim.
Menurut HM Saraswat, kuasa hukum Salman, pengadilan gagal menunjukkan bukti kuat yang menunjukkan bintang Tiger Zinda Hai itu membunuh dua antelope. Lebih jauh, Saraswat menuduh pengadilan merekayasa bukti.
"Jaksa gagal membuktikan tuduhan atas terdakwa dan telah merusak dan merekayasa bukti serta dokumen dan juga menggunakan saksi palsu untuk membuktikan kasus ini," ujar Saraswati seperti dilansir Times of India .
Ia melanjutkan, "Mereka gagal membuktikan jika kedua antelope itu dibunuh dengan senjata api. Oleh karena itu penyelidikan semacam ini tidak dapat dipercaya."
Baca Juga: Gengsi, Katrina Kaif Tolak Sebut Salman Khan Sebagai Mentor
Sebelumnya, Salman mengaku jika dirinya dijebak. Mantan Katrina Kaif ini mengklaim jika kedua antelope itu meninggal karena sebab wajar, bukan karena dibunuh olehnya menggunakan senjata api seperti dituduhkan padanya.
Image copyright AFP Image caption Khan can appeal against the verdict
An Indian court has sentenced Bollywood superstar Salman Khan to five years in jail for poaching rare antelope back in 1998.
The court in Jodhpur also fined him 10,000 rupees ($154; £109) for the crime. He has since been taken to jail.
Khan killed the two blackbucks, a protected species, in the western state of Rajasthan while shooting a film.
Four other actors who starred with him in the movie and were also charged with the offence have been acquitted.
Khan, 52, can appeal against the verdict in a higher court.
Correspondents say he will have to spend at least a few days in prison.
What is behind the Salman Khan case?
This is the fourth case filed against the actor in connection with poaching animals during the filming of the 1998 movie Hum Saath Saath Hain.
He has been acquitted in three of them.
In 2006, a trial court convicted the actor in two cases of poaching and sentenced him to five years in prison. The Rajasthan high court suspended the sentence the following year, and eventually acquitted him in 2016.
The state government has appealed against that order in the Supreme Court.
The original poaching case against him was filed by the local Bishnoi community, who revere and worship the blackbuck.
Has he been accused of anything else?
In December 2015, Khan was cleared in a 2002 hit-and-run case in which a homeless man died and four others were in injured. His car allegedly ran over them while they were sleeping on a street in the western city of Mumbai.
A lower court had convicted him in May 2015. During his trial, Khan had argued that his driver had been behind the wheel, but the judge said it was the actor who had been driving under the influence of alcohol.
Seven months later, the high court acquitted him. It said that key evidence - including testimony from a policeman who had since died - was not reliable.
In January 2017, Khan was also acquitted in another case that charged him with using illegal firearms to kill the blackbucks.
How big is Salman Khan?
One of Bollywood's biggest stars, the actor has appeared in more than 100 films and has a huge fan following across the vast spectrum of Indian society.
His fans include the middle-class English-speaking audiences as well as poor slum dwellers for whom the 350-rupee ($5.20; £3.40) tickets do not come cheap.
Known for his romantic roles as well as action films, Khan has won several prestigious Indian cinema awards.
The eldest of the three sons of well-known screenplay writer Salim Khan, he is a hit on social media too - his Facebook page is liked by more than 36 million fans, while on Twitter he has 32.5 million followers.
Will it dent his popularity?
Rajini Vaidyanathan, BBC News, Delhi
Every day in the Mumbai suburb of Bandra, fans flock to Salman Khan's apartment building to catch a glimpse of the Bollywood actor.
I once met a group of fans who had travelled more than five hours by bus, to wait in the searing heat in the hope he would wave at them from his balcony.
His films continue to draw mass audiences, across urban and rural India. In a country where Bollywood is revered, Khan is one of the most worshipped.
While his time in the spotlight has attracted praise and controversy in equal measure, this latest conviction is unlikely to dent his popularity or damage his career due to the cult-like status he enjoys.
What has the reaction been?
Khan's conviction is making waves on both mainstream and social media.
The hashtag #BlackBuckPoachingCase is the top trend on Twitter India while #Salman Khan is also trending.
Many of the tweets addressed the fact that the case has gone on for years.
Skip Twitter post by @rameshsrivats Lifespan of blackbuck: 10 to 15 years.
Lifespan of court case when one kills a blackbuck: 20 years. — Ramesh Srivats (@rameshsrivats) April 5, 2018 Report
Others welcomed the verdict.
Some celebrities, including friends of the actor, took Khan's side.
Skip Twitter post by @richa_singh Honestly, I am feeling bad for Salman Khan because others were equally culpable and should not have been acquitted. Why should he suffer alone?
And rumour mills say he wasn't the one per se but took blame for all female actors to safeguard them. — richa singh (@richa_singh) April 5, 2018 Report
Skip Twitter post by @Simi_Garewal Of one thing I am dead sure..@BeingSalmanKhan would NEVER EVER harm any animal. He loves them too much. The real culprit should be exposed. 20 years is too long to bear someone else's cross.. — Simi Garewal (@Simi_Garewal) April 5, 2018 Report
However, most Bollywood actors have refrained from commenting.
(CNN) Bollywood superstar Salman Khan has been sentenced to serve five years in prison after being convicted of illegal poaching in a decades-old case, prosecutors said Thursday.
Bhawani Singh, a public prosecutor working on the case, told reporters outside the court that Khan can appeal the decision to a higher court. If Khan's appeal is accepted, he could be granted bail or have his sentence suspended.
Khan, one of India's most recognizable and bankable actors, was found guilty of killing two blackbucks, a type of antelope found in the country, while working on a film in the northwestern Indian state of Rajasthan in the 1998. He was also fined 10,000 Indian rupees ($150).
Prosecutors alleged the 52-year-old shot the two blackbucks while out driving with some of his co-stars.
Khan pleaded not guilty and has long maintained his innocence as the case has languished in legal limbo over the years. Khan's lawyers said he was carrying an air gun, which cannot be used for hunting an antelope.
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Actor says he will appeal sentence following conviction for poaching blackbucks in 1998
The Bollywood superstar Salman Khan has been sentenced to five years in jail for poaching a protected species of Indian antelope, in the latest twist to an off-screen life almost as dramatic as the epics he has starred in.
A court in Rajasthan state on Thursday found Khan, one of the world’s best-paid actors, guilty of illegally hunting the two blackbucks from his car window while filming in Jodhpur in 1998.
Public prosecutors alleged that Khan, 52, and four other actors in the car with him fled the scene when they were spotted, leaving the animals’ carcasses behind.
The other actors, among them Saif Ali Khan and Sonali Bendre, were acquitted by the court in Jodhpur for lack of evidence.
India’s wildlife protection act bans the hunting of all but a handful of wild animals without a special permit.
As well as the five-year sentence the court also fined Khan 10,000 rupees (£109). His lawyers said they would appeal the case and that an urgent bail hearing has been scheduled for 10.30am on Friday.
Khan was taken to Jodhpur central jail after visiting a local hospital for a medical examination.
ANI (@ANI) Rajasthan: #SalmanKhan in Jodhpur Central Jail premises. #BlackBuckPoachingCase pic.twitter.com/9b8NIEQEpy
Hundreds of police had surrounded the courtroom in Jodhpur to keep back fans of the actor, known for his bad-boy image and macho film roles.
Khan has long maintained that he was framed by forest officials “for publicity” and that the blackbucks could have died from natural causes such as overeating.
Khan’s lawyer Anand Desai said in a statement he was surprised by the judgment as the facts of the case mirrored those the Rajasthan high court had relied on to suspend his client’s conviction for the same crime in 2007.
He also questioned why the other accused has been let free, which he said implied “that Salman was out hunting alone in the middle of the night in a remote area outside Jodhpur”.
At the time of the poaching, blackbucks were regarded as a vulnerable animal, but have since been reclassified as a species of least concern, though they remain protected by Indian wildlife regulations.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Salman Khan with Kareena Kapoor in the 2011 film Bodyguard. Photograph: PR Image
Khan has a history of brushes with the law. In 2015, he was acquitted of killing a homeless man in a hit-and-run incident in 2002, a decision now being challenged in the supreme court.
His former girlfriend, the actor Aishwarya Rai, accused Khan of verbal and physical abuse in a 2002 interview – allegations Khan has denied.
Khan was first arrested in the poaching case in October 1998 after reports emerged that he had hunted the two antelopes and at least three other gazelles.
Eight years later, he was convicted of killing the blackbucks and sentenced to five years in prison, a decision he appealed to the Rajasthan high court, which suspended the sentence in August 2007 after the actor had spent two short stints in jail.
The charges were revised and laid again the following year, and have hung over Khan for the past decade, preventing him from obtaining a UK visa in 2013 until the Rajasthan government asked the court to give him leeway to travel.
In 2016, he was acquitted of separate poaching charges relating to the gazelles.
The allegations of poaching against the actor were first made by a member of the Bishnoi community in Rajasthan, a sect that considers blackbucks to be a reincarnation of their 600-year-old guru.
Poonamchand Bishnoi reportedly told the court he had heard gunshots and saw headlights the night of the poaching and wrote down the registration number of the hunter’s car as it sped away.
Members of the sect who were gathered outside the court cheered as the verdict was read and Khan was led into a police vehicle.
Cases in India’s overburdened legal system can take years to be processed but the lingering poaching charges have failed to dampen the often obsessive devotion Khan commands from his fans.
“Khan’s bad-boy image has sustained him from the beginning of his career,” said Anna MM Vetticad, an Indian film industry journalist and author.
“The frequent reports of drunken misbehaviour in public, indiscipline at work and girlfriend abuse, along with the hit-and-run and poaching cases that finally landed him in court, have contributed greatly to fan enthusiasm for him.”
His mostly male followers see something of their own struggles in those of the man they call “Salman-bhai”, or Salman-brother, she added. “To them, [he] is a golden-hearted man-child whose charitable trust is reason enough to forgive him for what they consider mere human failings.”
He earned $37m (£26m) last year, according to Forbes, making him India’s second-highest paid entertainer after Shah Rukh Khan.
His latest film, Tiger Zinda Hai, about a soldier who goes into Iraq to rescue hostages from Islamic State, collected about $85m worldwide.
