Actor will be in barrack next to Asaram’s, to sleep on floor

JAIPUR: Bollywood star Salman Khan will spend his time in a barrack next to Asaram Bapu, the self-styled godman accused of rape, in a jail in Rajasthan’s Jodhpur after he was found guilty in the two-decade-old blackbuck poaching case on Thursday, officials said.

Khan was sentenced to five years in jail and fined ₹10,000 after a local court in Jodhpur convicted him of the killing of two blackbucks in Kankani village in October 1998. Khan’s counsel Mahesh Bora said the sessions court will hear the actor’s appeal on Friday to suspend the sentence. He said Khan will get bail if the sentence is indeed suspended.

“We have made special security arrangements in jail for Salman Khan,” superintendent of Jodhpur Central Jail Vikram Singh said. Singh said Khan, prisoner number 106, was lodged in “Ward Number 2”. “He was made to undergo medical tests and has no medical issues. He hasn’t made any demands. We’ll give him jail uniform tomorrow (Friday),” he told ANI.

Singh said the 52-year-old actor will be lodged in a barracks next to Asaram’s in the security ward and will not share it with anyone. There are only two barracks in the security ward and each of them is occupied by prisoners who need to be kept away from other inmates. Asaram is in Jodhpur jail since August 3, 2013, after he was arrested for allegedly sexually assaulting a 16-year-old schoolgirl.

Officials said Khan will be treated like any other prisoner and has to follow the jail schedule. The Bajrangi Bhaijan actor will sleep on the floor and get a ceiling fan to beat the heat, they added. The maximum temperature in Jodhpur on Thursday was about 40 degrees Celsius.

Superintendent Singh said prisoners get tea and breakfast in the morning in their barracks between 9am and 10am. They are locked in their wards between 11am and 3pm after which they are free to roam around until 7pm. Dinner is served in the barracks around this time, he added. Khan has already spent some time behind the bars in Jodhpur since the three cases against him were registered in 1998 — two for poaching chinkaras and one for killing blackbucks.

The forest department arrested the actor in the blackbuck poaching case on October 12, 1998. He was in the department’s custody for two days and sent to jail from October 15 to 17.

The second time the actor went to jail was in 2006 when he was convicted of killing a chinkara on September 28, 1998, at a farm near Mathania village. The court of chief judicial magistrate sentenced him to five years of imprisonment on April 10, 2006. Khan spent three days in the jail and was released on April 13 on bail.

The third time Khan went behind the bars was in 2007.