It’s Official. Salman Khan Can Do No Wrong

There were eye witnesses, there was blood, there’s a gun, but since there’s also Salman Khan, there’s no guilty verdict.

WrittenBy:Rajyasree Sen
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Therein lies the power of Salman Khan, superstar. Even when the media reports on him being acquitted on a charge of wrongful possession of arms, his attire is described before his guilt or innocence is.

Khan was acquitted today in one of the many cases related to the alleged poaching of a chinkara and a black buck in 1998, for which he was being tried. For those not in the know, in 1998, while shooting the travesty on cinema which was Hum Saath Saath Hain, the stars of the film allegedly decided to go on a poaching romp in Rajasthan. On two separate days, Khan, Tabu, Saif Ai Khan Pataudi, Sonali Bendre and Neelam allegedly shot and halal-ed two chinkaras and a black buck. One of the animals was killed at Bhawad on the outskirts of Jodhpur on September 26, 1998, and the other at Ghoda Farms on September 28, 1998. In their defence, film shoots can be awfully boring. Maybe when Khan heard he was being taken to Rajasthan for a shooting, he took the term literally.

The complaint against Khan was registered by members of the Bishnoi community on October 2, 1998 and Salman Khan was taken into custody on October 12, 1998. Harish Dulani, the driver of the car on both days, was a key witness.

In 2007, Khan was sentenced to five years in prison by the Rajasthan High Court for hunting a black buck. He spent six days in Jodhpur Central Jail before his sentence was suspended. The Rajasthan government in October 2016 filed a special leave petition in the Supreme Court against his acquittal by the High Court in the chinkara poaching case.

Another case involving the alleged poaching of the blackbuck is still being heard and Khan’s four co-stars are to appear in court on January 25 to record their statements in the case.

The current case, though, is on whether or not Khan was carrying an unlicensed gun while out on his shooting jaunt. I think we should all take a moment to appreciate the fact that our “stars” walk around with armed weapons in public. Khan had been charged under the Arms Act. His defence said that Khan only carried air guns and the post-mortem of the chinkara attributed its death to different causes – one report said it was a dog bite and another that it was a gun shot. We all should stay away from Rajasthan, if there are dogs which can bring down a chinkara, running wild.

The court has now given Khan “benefit of doubt” and stated that there is not enough evidence to prosecute Khan. Dulani, much like the witnesses in Khan’s hit-and-run case, never showed up to the court for further cross-examination. The defence has also claimed that despite blood stains from a chinkara being found in Hotel Aashirwad and blood of a chinkara being found in the spot where the animal was supposedly killed, there just wasn’t enough evidence against Khan. And also that Khan owned an air gun, which can’t kill an animal.

All I can say is that Khan is one lucky – albeit persecuted – man. Few celebrities have been accused in as many criminal cases as Khan has. All these cases though, as has been argued by various defence counsels of his, are false and figments of people’s imagination. For some reason, strangers seem to want to accuse Khan of running over pedestrians, driving drunk, carrying unlicensed arms and poaching endangered animals for entertainment. Also, each time he is accused of a crime which he never commits – because he is a good and charitable man as we’ve been told umpteen times – he just happens to be present in a one kilometre radius of the crime. Another constant is that key witnesses always turn hostile or go missing in these cases.

If I was Khan, I would start developing a severe persecution complex, wondering why everyone from the Bishnois to Bandra pavement dwellers to Viveik Oberoi and Aishwarya Rai Bachchan hate me. It’s a conundrum if ever there was one. Why should a man who is charitable, kind and hard-working be persecuted so?

Last month, Khan appeared on Karan Johar’s talk show Koffee With Karan and claimed “Celebrities never get away with anything…In fact, they pay the price (for being a celebrity).” I don’t know if they’re giggling into their koffee right now, but they really should be.

Khan is our answer to OJ Simpson. He too is hugely popular, loves reality television and has the best legal team money can buy. All evidence and eye witnesses can point to a crime being committed, but with a legal dream team at your behest, all you need them to do is to prove reasonable doubt. Simpson’s team did it and so has Khan’s. I’d like to pillory him, but he’s actually shown us that he’s smarter than we give him credit to be. He played the system and seems to have gotten away with it.

Did the black buck kill itself? Did Khan’s car get possessed and run over people by itself or by his driver? Are all those hostile eye witnesses in various cases part of an Anti-Salman Khan cult? Is Khan so much a part of our existence that we now imagine him everywhere a crime has occurred, like a miasma? We will never know.

What we do know is that Khan has proven that celebrity and power in India remains untouched, whether by design or coincidence. Manu Sharma, son of a Congress politician, gets more parole than other murderers – that too after shooting a woman in the face for refusing to serve him a drink. Grandson of former naval chief SM Nanda and one of Delhi’s many rich boys, Sanjeev Nanda served only two years for running over six people, including three constables. From Khan to Sharma to Nanda, all three were accused of not only committing a crime, but also tampering with evidence and threatening witnesses.  

If we go by what Khan and his team and his colleagues claim – that he is always framed – I would strongly suggest that Khan either lock himself up in an ivory tower or get an exorcism done. It’s a cruel world out there, full of delusional people like the Bishnois who thought that they could win in a court of law against King Khan.

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