Rajasthan government moves HC for acquittal of blackbuck poaching case co-accused

JODHPUR

: The state government moved high court on Monday challenging the acquittal of five co-accused in the Kankani poaching case, after receiving the nod from the law department last week.

AAG Shiv Kumar Vyas said that the appeal against the acquittal of Saif Ali Khan, Neelam, Tabu, Sonali Bendre and a local Dushyant Singh was filed in the high court on Monday.

“The lower court had acquitted all the five co-accused in the Kankani

blackbuck

poaching case while sentencing Salman Khan to five years imprisonment,” said Vyas.

The forest department being the complainant in the case had appealed to the state government for challenging the acquittal of these co-accused. “The matter was referred to the law department, which had given a go-ahead in the case for filing appeal,” he said.

Main accused Salman Khan was convicted and sentenced to five years imprisonment in the case on April 5 by the chief judicial magistrate Dev Kumar Khatri, while co-accused of the case namely Saif Ali Khan, Neelam, Sonali Bendre, Tabbu and Dushyant Singh had been acquitted.

All these co-accused had been framed under Section 51 of Wildlife Act read with section 149 IPC and section 52 of the Wildlife Act for provoking the main accused Salman Khan for poaching of the endangered animal.

According to the prosecution during the shooting of the film Hum Saath Saath Hai, Salman Khan went on an alleged hunting session with his co-stars and was accused of killing two blackbucks in Kankani in the intervening night of October 1-2, 1998.

There were two more cases against Salman Khan for allegedly killing two chinkaras (Indian gazelle) in Bhawad area and another in Mathania, both in Rajasthan. But, the actor was later acquitted by Rajasthan High Court in 2016 for the poaching of the chinkaras. The prosecutors have challenged his acquittal in a higher court which is currently pending in the SC.