Missing Driver, Mystery Pellets: How Salman Khan Was Acquitted

Jodhpur: Bollywood actor Salman Khan was acquitted on Monday by the Rajasthan High Court in two cases related to poaching of chinkaras in Jodhpur in 1998.

The court held that the pellets recovered from the dead chinkaras were not fired from Khan's licensed gun.

The driver of the jeep that was used by Khan and his co-stars on their alleged hunting mission has been missing, weakening the prosecution's case against the movie star.

Khan, 50, was jailed in 2007 for nearly a week for shooting an endangered gazelle in 1998.

The trial court (CJM) had convicted him in both the cases sentencing him to one-year and five-year imprisonment on February 17, 2006, and April 10, 2006, respectively.

The convictions were challenged by Khan in the Sessions Court, which dismissed appeal in Mathanias case and transferred appeal to High Court in Bhawads case, where already two appeals by the State Government had been pending.

Hearing on both these petition in High Court had begun on November 16, 2015, and were completed on May 13, 2016, after which Justice Nirmal Jit Kaur had reserved her judgement.Missing Driver and Mystery Pellets

While arguing the case in High Court, defence counsel Mahesh Bora had contended that Khan had been falsely framed in these cases, merely on the statements of a key witness Harish Dulani, the driver of the vehicle, which was allegedly used in poaching in both these cases.

Bora argued that Dulani was never available to them for cross examination and hence his statements could not be relied upon in conviction of Khan. He also argued that both of these cases have been built on circumstantial evidences and there was no eye-witness or any material evidence against Khan.

Besides this, the major observation by the court was that it did not find the pellets recovered from the vehicle matching with those recovered from the possession of Khan.

Defence also strongly argued that these pellets had been planted since they were not found in the vehicle during Forest Department's inspection and were found there surprisingly by the police later.No Smoking Gun

Similarly, the defence also argued that Khan was not in possession of weapons allegedly used in poaching and were brought to Jodhpur from Mumbai only on demand of the Forest Department.

It was also argued that the pellets produced belonged to air gun, which has no capacity at all to kill an animal.

In its reply, the Prosecution counsel KL Thakur had argued that Dulani was present in the court twice but the defence did not examine him.

Thakur citing the statements of the co-accused, tried to prove the case by corroborating the statements of Dulani, though, some of them had turned hostile in the court later.

Citing the FSL report of the blood stains taken from Hotel Aashirwad, where the carcass said to have been taken by Khan in first case and the blood socked soil from the spot of poaching in second case, Thakur tried to prove that it was chinkaras blood.

Prosecution also produced the FSL report of the tyremarks of the vehicle in question in second case and maintained that out of six samples, four matched proving that it was the same vehicle, which had gone on spot of poaching.