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CONTROVERSY: BLACKBUCK CASE
Hero's Trial Run
Charged with killing endangered deer, Salman Khan
now plays hare to the legal hounds
By Rohit Parihar
A rock bounces loudly
on the bonnet missing the windshield of the green Cielo by a whisker.
Inside, sitting huddled with a bodyguard, is Salman Khan, Bollywood star
who thinks nothing of such situations on the silver screen. But the rock
is for real and following the speeding car through the streets of Jodhpur
is a motley crowd of fans and angry locals, some of them Bishnois.
 That
was Friday, April 13. But it has been like that day for a while; Khan's
life has come to be dominated by such pursuits in Jodhpur over the past
two and a half years. All because he is alleged to have, first on his
own, and later with several co-stars (all visiting this desert town for
the shooting of Hum Saath Saath Hain), shot dead two chinkaras and three
blackbucks in Bishnoi villages around Jodhpur in the last week of September
and October 1998. In fact early on the morning of October 2, Khan and
his companions-Saif Ali Khan, Sonali Bendre, Neelam, Tabu-moving in an
open top vehicle, were spotted and chased by local villagers. This was
sacrilege; the Bishnois don't allow the slaughter of the blackbuck, which
they revere, and hence Khan's act has not been condoned.
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| STAR ACCUSED: Khan entering a Jodhpur court
where he denied all the charges |
Ever since the incidents, Khan has been caught
up in several court trials-April 13 was when the charges were framed in
one of the four cases against him. Every appearance means taking three
days off from his busy film-shooting schedules. Khan finds that being
a star is not always fun. "It hurts. I am not being treated as any
other accused. The entire case is getting special attention just because
I'm involved," he told India Today (see interview). Whichever way
one looks at the case, he is badly stuck. The wildlife conservators of
Rajasthan have pressed several charges, as indeed have the local police.
The cases relate to the killing of the blackbucks and the chinkaras (both
endangered animals), and skinning and eating their flesh. In his complaint
before a city judge on June 17, 2000, L.K. Bora, inquiry officer and assistant
conservator of forest, Jodhpur, pointed out several counts on which Khan
and his companions could be tried. Bora based his complaint on the post-mortem
reports from Hyderabad, the seizure of weapons (telescopic air gun, .22
telescopic rifle, revolver), blood stains on the open Gypsy that the "hunters"
rode, records of hotels, and, of course, video-recorded witness statements,
mostly of the Bishnois.
The evidence wasn't easy to collect. Initially,
attempts were made, according to investigating officials, to weaken the
case against the star and his colleagues by doctoring the crucial post-mortem
report. It turned out that a veterinary doctor who came into the picture
soon after the incident attributed the death of one of the animals to
"asphyxia caused by overeating".
The reason given for another death was even
more bizarre: the buck had fallen into an open ditch, and being trapped,
was subsequently killed by wild canines. Senior forest officials, appalled
by the remarks, set up a medical board, but not before placing the erring
vet under suspension. The board exhumed the bodies of the dead bucks (whether
they were the same bucks or not is a claim that will be hotly contested
during the trials). According to Bora's report, during post mortem the
board found that one of the blackbucks had died due to gunshot wounds,
while the other two had also sustained bullet injuries. The board itself
isn't too categorical, but couches its report with sentences such as "the
wound on the skin appears to be a gun shot one" (in one case), and
"the animal would have died due to shock caused by excessive pain
due to fracture and wound that seems to be a gun shot one" (in the
other). The forensic report incidentally rules out lead shot or gunpowder
burns.
There have been over a hundred hearings of the
cases, and the legal situation is getting more drawn out. By the looks
of it, it'll be a while before relief comes along. The four cases could
take anywhere between two and three years in the trial court alone. Khan
had another feel of this protracted legal war last week. He had flown
in from Jaipur where he was shooting for a domestic cola ad. Surrounded
by numerous policemen, he waded through a crowd of onlookers to appear
before Chief Judicial Magistrate Pramod Vashisht. The star was turned
out, true to image, in a blue T-shirt, black jeans and dark glasses. The
judge, having read out the framed charges (for the killing of two chinkaras,
cooking and eating them), looked towards Khan in the witness box and asked
in chaste Hindi whether he accepted them. Khan was silent. The judge repeated
the query. This time Khan's lawyer, Hastimal Saraswat, "interpreted"
the query. A dispirited Khan slowly replied that he was denying all the
charges, and, therefore, was "ready to face trial."
The trials are not just protracted, Khan's professional
commitments are getting re-scheduled as well. Apart from ensuring three
days are taken off from his shooting schedule, Khan needs the court's
permission each time he has to leave the country for foreign-locale shoots.
Thus far about 20 such requests have been put in. The court needs to be
satisfied on every occasion that the star would return within the permitted
dates. His target shooting, meanwhile, has suffered. It had come to an
end because the weapons, some of them requiring renewal of licence, had
been seized. The court has recently ordered that his licence should be
renewed and the seized arms be released. The prosecution claims Khan did
not have a valid weapon licence at the time of the incidents. "Correspondence
with the commissioner of police, Greater Mumbai, shows that neither Khan
nor his authorised agent had contacted the police for renewal of licence
until June 15, 1999," says Bora's report.
One fact is undeniable. The blackbucks and the
subsequent trials have brought an element of despondency in the Khan family.
Says the scriptwriter father Salim Khan: "Over the past two years
I've become quite philosophical. Salman himself has matured and sees the
whole thing as one of those hazards that celebrities must face."
It'll be a while before the case matures, though.
Till then one thing is certain: each time he descends on Jodhpur, there
will be hundreds following him to the courts. Some will be star-struck;
some others would be attempting to strike at the star.
—With Sayantan Chakravarty
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