Salman Khan arrested at Jodhpur airport, jailed

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Mumbai: Bollywood actor Salman Khan who reached Jodhpur, a day after the local court rejected his appeal against five-year jail term in the Chinkara poaching case, was arrested as soon as he reached the airport on Saturday.

Salman who flew down to Jodhpur with members of family, friends and his lawyer Dipesh Mehta, reached Jodhpur at around 1300 hrs (IST).

Before taking the flight to Jodhpur, Salman said he is ready to face it all.

“I have full faith in the law; I will abide by the law,” the actor said.

The actor had several visitors on Friday night. They included Shah Rukh Khan, Malaika Arora Khan and Sunil Shetty.

Salman will have to spend at least four days in jail, as Monday and Tuesday are court holidays.

The actor was in Mumbai and failed to appear for the hearing, saying he missed the flight to Jodhpur from Hyderabad where he is currently shooting when it upheld his five-year jail term on Friday.

The Bishnoi community which worships and adores the black buck, took up the case against the star.

In April last year, Salman had filed an appeal in the district and sessions court against the judgment of the chief judicial magistrate's court in Jodhpur that had sentenced him to five years "rigorous" imprisonment and fined him Rs 25,000.

Salman has been convicted of poaching a chinkara, an endangered deer species, in the Ghoda farm near Jodhpur on the intervening night of September 28, 1998 while filming for Sooraj Barjatiya's blockbuster Hum Saath Saath Hain.

The chinkara case is just two of the four cases that were filed against him after he spent three days on a hunting expedition with friends in the forests around Jodhpur during that time. He is alleged to have killed two chinkaras and two blackbucks over three days.

The forest department feels it will be able to build a watertight case against him in the blackbuck case, which comes up for hearing later this month in Jodhpur High Court.

A case was registered against Salman and five others under Sections 143, 144, 148 and 201 read with 149 of the Indian Penal Code, Section 51 and 52 of the Wildlife Protection Act and Section 27 of the Indian Arms Act at Mathania Police Station on Oct 11, 1998.

Salman’s legal wrangle

1997 marked the beginning of Salman's legal troubles. Salman was involved in a Chinkara poaching case in Ghoda farms in Rajasthan on October 11, 1997.

In 1998, while in Jodhpur, Rajasthan, to shoot for a song sequence for Rajshri Films' Hum Saath Saath Hain, Salman and several co-stars went hunting in the nearby Thar Desert. The group strayed into a Bishnoi-dominated area, where Salman shot a black buck, a member of an endangered species that is illegal to hunt.

Rumors had always existed that Salman had physically abused his former girlfriend, Pakistani actress Somy Ali. In 1999, Aishwarya Rai’s family also fueled similar tales regarding his behaviour with Aishwarya.

In the complaint, the Rais stated that they “should not be held responsible for any untoward incident involving the actor.”

Salman Khan is also charged with killing a person and injuring four by ramming his car into a bakery in suburban Bandra on September 28, 2002.

Despite the fact that a policeman was in Khan's car (Khan had been receiving police protection due to death threats from the mafia), Khan absconded from the scene.

He later claimed that he felt his life was threatened by the mob that formed after the accident, but some suspected he'd wanted to avoid a blood-alcohol test.

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