'If you’re a hero, then go shoot'

Witness says Sonali, Tabu and Neelam, urged Salman to kill

JODHPUR: After all the hype and hoopla over Salman Khan’s verdict in the chinkara case, he’s finally at the place where it all started — Jodhpur. Salman is accused of killing three chinkaras and two black bucks in September and October 1998 respectively. As of now, he has been convicted in the chinkara case.

Salman was accompanied by actors Saif Ali Khan, Tabu, Sonali Bendre and Neelam but it was Salman who shot the two black bucks. However, police sources told DNA that a witness said it was the girls who gave the rifle to Salman Khan and asked him to fire at the black buck. The girls said, “If you are a hero then shoot the black buck.”

Also read:

• Ammi, main jaa raha hoon
• Show-stopper flexes muscles in mid-air
• Salman’s a 4am friend
• Salman is Prisoner No 343
• At least 3 lonely nights for Salman
• What’s happening on hit-and-run?
• Sallu’s new address Barrack No 1.5
• Meet Salman - the good boy and the bad boy
• The replacements for Salman

All the actors, except Salman, were acquitted of the charges. The Bishnoi community But what happened in the jungles of Jodhpur in September and October 1998 pitted Rajasthan’s Bishnoi community against actor Salman Khan forever. The Bishnois are a community of nature worshippers in Rajasthan. They are strong lovers of tress and wild life.

Poonam Chand Bishnoi, an ordinary farmer till eight years back in the desert hamlet of Kankani, is the prime witness in the black buck poaching case.

He along with another villager, Choga Ram, chased Salman’s gypsy on a motorbike when he saw it stray into the jungles on October 1 1998 at midnight. They saw Salman shoot the black bucks, after which the actors got away.

The Bishnois reported the matter to the forest department. They found the two black bucks at the same spot in the morning and took them for a post mortem. Bishnoi women still come to pray and pay respects at the spot where the two blackbucks are buried.

But the Bishnois have not forgiven Salman Khan even after eight years.

“To us he is the hunter of harmless creatures,” Poonam Chand says. Poonam Chand is not alone in this fight; the Bishnois have a history of sacrificing their lives for nature. Unlike the many witnesses in the Salman Khan poaching cases who turned hostile, the Bishnois have stood by what they had first said.