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Table of contents
Hit-and run case: The charges and the verdict

Why did Salman Khans trial take so long? Because thats how law works in Indi
08
From 2002 to 2015: A timeline of events in the Salman Khan hit-and-run case
11
A look at all the charges slapped on Salman Khan in 2002 hit-and-run case
19
Five years in jail: Salman Khan previously described prison as hell
20
Hit-and-run case: Salman Khan sentenced for 5 years, to be taken into

custody today
22
Salman Khan sentenced to five years in jail: The witnesses that mattered
23
Reactions to Salmans sentencing

Salman fans celebrate at his residence as HC suspends 5-year sentence
26
Salman Khans bail justified or unusual? Lawyers divided over Bombay HC

decision
27
Meherbani, Shukriya: Salman thanks fans for their support, blessings
29
UnBHAIased ruling? #SalmanVerdict rules Twitter after judge finds Khan guilty
of culpable homicide
32
Roads garib ke baap ki nahi hain: Tone deaf Bollywood supports Salman
39
Sending Salman to jail will not heal my leg: Victim of hit-and-run
43
Farahs gems: Jewelry designer says people shouldnt sleep on roads
44
Shares of Eros, Mandhana tank as Salman Khan gets 5 years in jail
47
Out of love for bhaijaan, Salman Khan-themed restaurant in Mumbai shuts

for a day
48
What does the ruling mean for Brand Salman and

his movies?
Brand Salman in grave danger
51
Five years of jail, so what? Its not the death of Brand Salman
53
No Entry to Kick: With Rs 200 crore riding on Salman Khan, here are the films
in jeopardy
55
Copyright 2012 Firstpost
The Firstpost Verdict

Hit and run affirms Salmans amazing record: 3 convictions, six days in jail
58
Sabse bada rupaiya: Did you think Salman Khan would be jailed for 5 years? Pity 60
Salman Khans defenders are as silly as Sanjay Dutts
62
Friends of Salman Khan, do us a favour and stop tweeting
64
Salman Khans punishment is richly deserved
69
How bhai betrayed his die-hard fans with hit-and-run case
71
Manage kar dena culture wont work always: Salman verdict a wake up call
for our elites
73
But Bhai is a good guy: Support for Salman Khan a win for his PR but medias
failure
75
What if Salman killed one of them? Bollywood hates the homeless, but wants
their money
80
Tu mera hero: Spare Salman Khan fans please, we hero-worship Congress,

BJP leaders too!
82
Hit-and run case: The charges and

the verdict
Bombay HC suspends Salman

Khans sentence, let off on bail
PTI, May 8, 2015
umbai: Salman Khan will not have

to go to jail pending disposal of his
appeal against conviction in the 2002
hit-and-run case after the Bombay High Court
suspended his sentence and granted him bail, in
a huge relief to one of the reigning superstars of
Bollywood.
"This is not a case where I should keep him

(Khan) in jail till his appeal is heard and decided. Why his right should suffer when his appeal
is admitted and kept pending?
"In many cases people have suffered and spent
their entire prison term only to be acquitted
later by the High Court," Justice Abhay Thipsay
observed, before staying execution of the 5-year
jail sentence awarded to Khan by the trial court
on Wednesday and ordering that he be enlarged
on bail.
Justice Thipsay had granted interim bail to
49-year-old Khan hours after his conviction
and sentencing by sessions court judge D W
Deshpande on the ground that the actor had
not been supplied with a detailed and reasoned
order. The tenure of the 48-hour interim relief
was to end today.
A man was killed and four others were wounded
when Khan's Toyota Land Cruiser ran over
them while they were asleep on a pavement outside a bakery in suburban Bandra on September
28, 2002.
"The normal rule is that when an appeal is
admitted and the sentence is under seven years,
it (the sentence) is suspended. Why do you
(prosecution) want to depart from this norm?"
Justice Thipsay said, rejecting prosecution's
contentions against the suspension of sentence.
Since the term of the interim bail was to expire
this evening, the judge asked Khan to surrender
before the trial court, execute a fresh bond of Rs
30,000 and furnish a surety of the like amount
for obtaining regular bail.
Anywhere between Rs 200 crore and Rs 250
crore was said to be riding on the popular actor
and the court's order would come as a huge relief to the jittery Hindi film world, which kept its
fingers crossed since Wednesday's judgement of
the trial court.
Hundreds of Khan's anxious fans had collected
outside the high court and the actor's Bandra
residence since early morning and the mood
was sullen.
Police contingents in riot gear deployed in both
places had a tough time regulating the crowds
that waited with bated breath for a 'positive'
outcome on Khan's appeal in the high court.
As the word came out that the high court had
stayed the sentence pending disposal of Khan's
appeal, exultant fans burst firecrackers, broke
into a wild jig, hopped, jumped and carried each
other on shoulders, throwing traffic into disarray for a while.
Sweets were kept ready for celebrations in the
event of his prayer for bail being granted.
Khan, who was at his Galaxy Apartments residence in suburban Bandra, soon stepped out to
loud cheers from delirious fans.

As the superstar, dressed in blue jeans, white
shirt and sporting sunglasses, left for the sessions court in his Mercedes SUV at the head of
a convoy of vehicles, jubilant supporters were
seen sprinting in pursuit.
The crowds that had parked themselves outside
the star's residence left only after he gestured
them to return to their homes. He folded his
hands in gratitude and waved at them for a brief
while before retreating from the balcony. His
father, scriptwriter Salim Khan, mother Salma,
brother Arbaaz and sister Arpita also made a
brief appearance on the balcony with him.
While ordering Khan to be enlarged on bail,
Justice Thipsay said he would expedite the
hearing on his appeal and posted the matter for
June 15.
He noted that Khan has been on bail throughout
the trial even after being slapped with the serious charge of culpable homicide not amounting
to murder. He had earlier been tried by a Metropolitan Magistrate on the lesser charge of rash
and negligent driving causing death.
"There are a number of arguable points raised
about whether or not Khan was driving the car.
It is also nobody's case that Khan will abscond
if he released on bail, pending appeal," Justice
Thipsay said.
While setting out the bail conditions, the judge
said Khan will have to obtain the permission
of the court before travelling abroad. Khan's
passport is with the Bandra police station and
he hitherto he used to seek police's permission
before going abroad.
During the arguments on admission of Khan's
appeal, defence counsels Amit Desai and Shrikant Shivade said the trial court had failed to
appreciate the fact that four prosecution witnesseses, including the investigating officer, had
maintained there were four persons present in
the Toyota Land Cruiser when the accident took
place and that it was the family driver Ashok
Singh who was at the wheel.
Prosecutor Sandeep Shinde, while insisting on
denial of bail to the actor, countered the defence's argument, saying it was only at the fag
end of the trial that Salman Khan had made a
statement under section 313 of CrPC in which
he claimed it was Singh who was driving the
SUV.
The actor has challenged the findings of the trial
court that he was drunk and was driving under
the influence of liquor.
Salman has also pleaded that the trial court
had wrongly convicted him under the culpable
homicide charge because he had no knowledge
that he would meet with an accident.
Sessions judge D W Deshpande had on May 6
held Khan guilty of "all charges" levelled against
him by the prosecution.
"All charges have been proved against you...
What you have to say? the judge asked Salman
who was in the dock.
"I hold that you were driving the vehicle. You
were intoxicated. I also do not agree with your
plea that the person who had died had received
fatal injuries after a crane dropped the car on
the persons underneath while removing it," the
judge had said.
He was apparently referring to the defence's
claims that Singh was driving the vehicle at
the time of the accident and that the victims
had received injuries after a crane called to lift
the SUV had failed to haul it up in one go and
dropped it on them.
Apart from being convicted of culpable homicide, Khan was also found guilty of offences
under section 279 IPC (rash and negligent driving) and sections 337 and 338 IPC (causing hurt
by acts endangering life or personal property of
others), which prescribes six months jail.
Besides, he was sentenced to undergo jail for
six months under sections 181 (driving without
licence) and 185 of Motor Vehicles Act (drink
driving).
Salman was found guilty under the Bombay
Prohibition Act under section 66 (a) and (b) for
which he received two months imprisonment
and fine of Rs 500. All sentences will run concurrently.

Reacting to the high court order, the wife of
Noorullah Shaikh, the lone person to have been
killed in the accident, said she has no complaint
against it but insisted that the family should be
rendered help.
"The order is right. The accident has already
happened, whatever should have not happened
has already happened and the person once gone
will never come back. We haven't got justice.
Nobody is coming to us, they should help us. I
had to work in homes to feed my children and
raise them," she said.
Her son said,"I think the verdict is fine. Now
that Salman has got bail he is happy. He should
then do something to eradicate our poverty."
Bollywood celebrities like Rishi Kapoor, Sajid
Khan and Rohit Roy welcomed the Bombay
High Court's decision to suspend Khan's sentence and grant him bail.
Filmmaker Sajid Khan tweeted, "@BeingSalmanKhan bollywood, fans and his critics will all
have to agree to this.. Salman Rules Fridays... I
am very happy for the Khan family," Sajid Khan
said.
"Looks like someone up there heard all our
prayers," actor Rohit Roy posted.
Actress Ameesha Patel, who visited Salman at
his residence yesterday, posted, "So happy to
hear the good news that @BeingSalmanKhan
has got bail. Prayers of all have been answered."
As Bollywood heaved a sigh of relief, former
Mumbai police Commissioner and now BJP MP
Satyapal Singh struck a discordant note.
"I had said even yesterday, it is very difficult for
the poor to get justice in this country," Singh
said, adding "it is very difficult to punish those
who wield influence".
Industry veteran Rishi Kapoor, back on Twitter after a very short absence due to the online
trolls, said, "Back. Welcome reprieve for Salman. Unprecedented reaction to this news."
Why did Salman Khans trial take so long?
Because thats how law works in India

Abhinav Sekri, May 7, 2015
lose to 13 years have passed since FIR

No. 326 was registered at Bandra Police
Station, after that sombre September
morning that saw one pavement-dweller killed
and four others maimed by a speeding car that
crushed them in their sleep. During this time,
the State of Maharashtra has steadily, albeit
slowly, proceeded in a trial against the prime
accused in this case, actor Salman Khan.
Khan was alleged to have been driving the car

rashly, under the influence of alcohol. After a
long-winded series of trials that saw plenty of
drama, multiple changes of venue, deaths of
witnesses and the disappearance of evidence,
arguments finally concluded in April 2015.
Today, the actor has been found guilty of the
charges framed under Sections 304 (Part II),
279, 337, 338 and 429 of the Indian Penal Code,
1860 (IPC) read with Sections 134, 187, 181 and
185 of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988. With the
exception of Section 304, the remaining sections mostly pertain to rash driving, speeding
and consequent injury caused to people and
property.
So what exactly transpired during these thirteen
years, and why did it take so long? Did it take 13
years only because Khan occupies a more privileged position in society than others? Would
different charges have made a difference? Did
Khan even have a plausible defence?

Proving One's Case
Is it just a waste of time to have Khan put up a
defence when the whole country knows he did
it? Thankfully, the law remains blind to public
opinion (textually, as one cannot read the mind
of the judge!). Criminal law adheres to notions
of presuming the innocence of an accused,
requiring the prosecution to establish its case
beyond all reasonable doubt.
The differences between how charges are
proved under Section 304-A as against Section
304 certainly affected the defence strategy. To
prove a charge under Section 304-A is significantly simpler than proving the culpable homicide of Section 304 (Part II) IPC. For the latter,
the prosecution needs to prove the enigma that
is a culpable mental state. Simply put: the
accused must have committed the act/illegal
omission with the knowledge that this would
lead to death, in contrast to Section 304-As
negligent act, which doesnt require one to have
such knowledge.
The retrial began in January 2014, and the
defence unsuccessfully, it turned out - sought
a direct strategy of seeking an acquittal on all
charges. The defence story has been that Khan
was not at the wheel, in support of which varied theories have been offered (ranging from a
confession by his driver to a suggestion that
the victims were killed by a crane, not the car).
The only eyewitness to this fact, Ravindra Patil
(a former constable in the Maharashtra Police
who, along with other witnesses, disappeared
under mysterious circumstances during the first
trial), testified against Khan.
However, he died midway through the first trial
in 2007, giving the defence some scope to raise
reasonable doubt on that front. In 2014, they
opposed the prosecutions request to use Patils recorded statements from the first trial as
evidence in the final trial (unsuccessfully, since

the judge allowed the recorded statements to
be used). And as is evident from the verdict, the
defence, despite all its tactics, failed to establish
any reasonable doubt in the mind of the judge
regarding Khans guilt.
Trials and Travails
The 13-year long trial was not quite the result of
extra-legal considerations attracted by Khan's
celebrity, but something that could happen in
a trial against anyone, given certain circumstances.
Currently, the law remains tight-lipped about
the grant of adjournments during a case: Section 309 of the Criminal Procedure Code 1973
[Cr.P.C.] makes it extremely difficult to seek
adjournments during recording of evidence.
However, theres a great gap between the text
and whats practiced.
Lawyers are often busy in other courts; clogged
dockets make daily trials difficult; the judge
might be on leave; witnesses may not appear in
court. Such circumstances make delays inevitable in nearly every trial today. The last of these
instances of witnesses not appearing was responsible for delaying matters by at least three
years in Khans trial.
To compound matters, several documents disappeared during the trial. This is unsurprising
given the general maintenance of malkhanas at
police stations, and a lengthy trial would thus
only increase the probability of evidence disappearing or deteriorating.
So what explains the sudden speeding up of
Khans trial over the last couple of years? It
is common practice for the judiciary to tackle
long-pending cases and dispose of them faster.
Consider a parallel: if you live alone (like young
litigators I know), you generally finish the older
slice of pizza in the fridge first, knowing that the
box you just ordered can wait a while.
That said, a round of applause for Judge Deshpande, for completing the trial in just over a
year and finally concluding the 13-year long
travail. The progress since his taking charge
can be seen courtesy of the very accessible case
information system run by the The Maharashtra

District Courts Website. One can see detailed
orders being put up for public view on daily applications.
This is not standard practice and such digital
access of district court materials is a rare phenomenon in India today. It may well be a byproduct of the media following Khan to Court.
After all, leaving aside the odd implosion, even
the Indian Cricket team performs well when
under strict scrutiny!
The Problem of the Charge
The particular charges framed against Khan
have attracted a great deal of attention and
litigation, most of which hinges on the difference between Section 304 and Section 304-A of
the IPC. The original charges framed included
one under Section 304 IPC. This was challenged
before the High Court, which in 2003 amended
the charge and replaced Section 304 IPC with
Section 304-A.
The State then moved the Supreme Court
against this order. Although the High Court was
criticised for its approach, the Supreme Court
observed that since the trial had begun, it would
be unwise to further alter charges. However,
it clarified that the power to alter charges remained with the Magistrate (under Section 216
Cr.P.C.) and that necessary alterations could be
made at a future stage of the trial, if warranted.
Which is exactly what the Additional Chief
Metropolitan Magistrate did 10 years later,
and placed the case before the Sessions Judge,
which is the competent court to try a case under
the higher charge of section 304.
By this time, many witnesses had been examined and cross-examined on the charges under 304-A IPC, and the defence requested a
retrial to allow Khan to defend himself against
the more serious charge under Section 304. A
retrial was allowed and began in January 2014,
culminating in todays conviction of Khan on all
charges.
Section 304-A vs. 304 IPC
So why did it matter whether charges were
framed under Section 304 of 304-A of the IPC?
The primary reason here, for me at least, was

the gravity of punishment. Section 304 punishes culpable homicide not amounting to
murder [as defined under Section 299 IPC] and
is divided into two parts. We are concerned with
the second, which allows for imprisonment up
to ten years. Section 304-A punishes causing
death by a rash or negligent act, not amounting
to culpable homicide, with a maximum of two
years imprisonment.
Further, Khan could have immediately sought
release on bail following a conviction under Section 304-A while now under Section 304 IPC, he
has been sentenced to five years imprisonment,
which requires him to move the High Court for
release on bail, pending the filing of an appeal
against the conviction. (There are also differences in how the offences are proved, which we
will come to later.)
The likelihood of a trial under Section 304-A
concluding faster than one under Section 304
IPC is definitely higher. But there is a problem
here: if the facts label my actions as rash and
negligent and the law creates a specific offence
under Section 304-A, should this not override
the more general offence under Section 304? I
think it should, but the courts disagree and in
doing so try to present a rather confusing logic
which I wont try and tackle.
If nothing else, one hopes that the scrutiny surrounding Khans trial warrants a re-look at the
punishment possible for Section 304-A offences, or a possible reconsideration of the offence
itself - as the Supreme Court itself suggested in
Alistair Pereiras case.
As it happens in a country obsessed with its
celebrities, the nation today is riveted with
updates on the case. Khan has appealed against
the decision before the Bombay High Court, and
has obtained an urgent hearing of his bail petition. While the case has not been the best advertisement for the Indian legal system - especially
regarding the handling of evidence and witnesses - it remains testament to the fact that the
wheels of justice grind slow, but grind fine. But
for the other victims who survived the incident,
justice delayed is as good as justice denied.
(Abhinav Sekhri is an Advocate litigating
on criminal law in Delhi. He runs a blog on
criminal law, called The Proof of Guilt. Special
thanks to Manish G, at the Centre for Social
Justice, for his helpful inputs)
The real reason for this strange practice is the

difference in potential punishment between the
two sections, which has led to a situation where
judges incline towards framing charges under
Section 304 when the incident appears rather
heinous. Those interested in reading further
might find useful the Supreme Courts 2012
decision in another high-profile hit-and-run
case from Bombay: that of Alistair Pereira (who
received three years in jail).
From 2002 to 2015: A timeline of events
in the Salman Khan hit-and-run case

FP Staff, May 6, 2015
A look at all the charges slapped on

Salman Khan in 2002 hit-and-run case
Five years in jail: Salman Khan
previously described prison as hell

alman Khan who was sentenced to five years in prison after he was found guilty of culpable
homicide in a 2002 hit and run case, is sadly, no stranger to prison.
Khan had to spend a few days in a Jodhpur prison in connection with the Black buck poaching case
in 2007, and in an interview after the experience was like 'entering hell'.
The actor had a heart to heart chat with Shubha Shetty-Saha of DNA, and here is what he said
about his experiences and perceptions of prison: (read the full interview here)
Hit-and-run case: Salman Khan sentenced

for 5 years, to be taken into custody today
PTI, May 6, 2015
ollywood superstar Salman Khan was

today convicted by a Mumbai sessions
court of culpable homicide not amounting to murder in the 2002 hit and run case and
has been sentenced to five years in jail. The actor will be taken into custody today and will be
taken to Arthur Road jail later tonight.
court, where Salman's family including brothers

Arbaaz, Sohail and sister Arpita Khan had arrived early this morning ahead of the verdict.
One person was killed and four others were
injured on the night of 28 September, 2002 in
suburban Bandra when Salman's Toyota Land
Cruiser rammed into a Bakery. The victims were
sleeping on the pavement when the SUV ran
over them.
A Bandra Metropolitan Magistrate, who conducted the trial under lesser charge of rash and
negligent driving, which carries a maximum
punishment of two years, had in 2012 slapped
the more serious offence of culpable homicide
and committed the matter to the sessions court.
Khan will have to take his bail plea to the High

Court since he has been sentenced to a term
greater than three years.
The judgement in the 13-year-old case, whose
trial saw many twists and turns, was delivered
by Judge D W Deshpande where the 49-yearold actor and his family were present. Significantly, the court held that the actor was driving
under the influence of alcohol and also did not
have a driving license.
The court relied upon judgements in Alistair
Pereira and Nikhil Nanda BMW case of Delhi
while convicting Khan. It also asked what he
had to say on the verdict to which he denied
charges saying he was not driving the car at the
time of mishap.
After the conviction, Khan's lawyer began arguments on quantum of punishment in the case.
The popular actor was tried afresh under

the harsher charge of culpable homicide not
amounting to murder which is punishable with
imprisonment upto 10 years.
While the prosecution had insisted that a drunk
Khan was driving the Land Cruiser, the actor
had claimed that it was his driver Ashok Singh
who was behind the wheel. Singh has endorsed
the defence's claim.
The defence had also argued that police had not
obtained finger prints from the steering wheel
to find out who was driving the vehicle.
Prosecutor Pradeep Gharat has alleged that
Khan was driving the vehicle after consuming
'Bacardi rum' at a bar, a charge denied by the
actor, who said he had just a glass of water.
Nurullah Mehboob Sharif was killed in the
accident in which Kalim Mohammed Pathan,
Munna Malai Khan, Abdullah Rauf Shaikh and
Muslim Shaikh had been injured.
A tight security blanket was thrown around the

Salman Khan sentenced to five years
in jail: The witnesses that mattered

PTI, May 7, 2015
hen a sessions court found Salman

Khan guilty of a range of charges including culpable homicide and other
offences, the court would have relied on a lot of
evidence and witness statements to convict him.
Here are the most crucial witness testimonies
that might have influenced the verdict against
the actor.
The eyewitnesses who stood by their
statements on Salman Khan
Salman khan verdict_Solaris Images_267754
Khan was sentenced to five years in jail. Solaris
images
Mannu Khan, Mohammed Kalim Iqbal Pathan
and Muslim Shaikh were employees of the
American Express who testified that they had
seen the actor on the night of the incident.
Mannu Khan told the court that he had seen
the actor emerge from the driver's seat following the incident and that the actor was so drunk
that he fell out of the car after the incident.
While Muslim Shaikh confirmed the actor was
driving the car, Pathan confirmed that Khan
which side of the vehicle he got out from but
didn't confirm whether he was behind the
wheel.
Ramsare Pande, the owner of a dairy near the
American Express bakery, also said that he
saw the actor emerge from the vehicle after the
incident.
he was speeding just before the accident took

place. Patil died of tuberculosis in 2007.
The defence lawyer had called Patil a liar and
said that he had been sleeping at the time of the
incident.
The witnesses who proved Salman Khan
was drunk while driving
While Salman Khan's defence was that he
wasn't drunk at the wheel when his car crashed
into the American Express Bakery. However,
the prosecution produced a witness, Dattaray
Khobrajirao Bhalshankar from the forensic science laboratory, who corroborated the fact that
the actor's blood sample was found to contain
62 mg of alcohol while the highest amount
found in a person would be no more than 40-45
mg and that would be only if they were taking
medication.
Shankar's testimony may have proved to be
enough to prove that the actor was driving while
drunk despite the fact there were other witnesses who claimed otherwise. While one witness
claimed the actor didn't smell of alcohol after
the accident, Molay Baug, the employee of a bar
where the actor was seen prior to the incident,
said that while he had served alcohol to the actor's table he wasn't sure if Khan had consumed
it.
The repentant driver who turned up as a
witness 13 years later to confess
The police bodyguard who was with Khan

at the time
Legal experts quoted by the Times of India
say that the arrival of the defence witness who
Ravindra Patil didn't live to see the verdict and
claimed after 13 years was a bad move. Lawyer
though he was deemed hostile by the prosecuNitin Pradhan was quoted in the report as saytion had given a statement in which he had
ing that to prove his claim that he wasn't behind
said the actor had gone to the JW Marriott with the wheel of his SUV in 2002, the actor should
singer Kamaal Khan on the night of the accihave deposed, placed himself for cross examinadent. Patil said that Khan was drunk when he
tion and then let the driver depose as a defence
was driving and he had warned the actor that
witness.
Singh had claimed that he was the driver of the

car on the night of the accident and the actor
had exited from the driver's seat only because
his door was jammed.
"From day one of the accident, I have been saying that I was driving the vehicle and not Salman Khan. But nobody listened, and I was not
aware what I should do further," Singh told the
court.
However, the prosecution pointed out that none
of the witnesses had corroborated this claim
and no one remembered seeing Singh on the
spot.
The actor's claim that he wasn't behind the
wheel backfired with the court saying that it
had found no evidence to suggest that the actor wasn't behind the wheel at the time of the
accident.
Reactions to Salmans sentencing
Salman fans celebrate at his residence
as HC suspends 5-year sentence

PTI, May 8, 2015
umbai: As the Bombay High Court

on Friday suspended the five-year
sentence awarded to Salman Khan
in the 2002 hit-and-run case, scores of his fans
who had converged at his residence in suburban
Bandra in Mumbai celebrated.
hotri, was present for the hearing at the High

Court along with Congress leader Baba Siddiqui. His brothers Arbaaz and Sohail chose to stay
with Salman at home.
A huge crowd including curious onlookers

and admirers had gathered outside Galaxy
apartments ahead of the court hearing on the
49-year-old actor's appeal against his conviction.
As soon as the news of his bail flashed across
news channels, fans started celebrating and
dancing resulting in traffic disruptions in the
area for a while.
A posse of security personnel, including a team
of State Reserve Police Force, was deployed in
the area.
Meanwhile, dressed in casuals with his sun
glasses on, Salman left for sessions court at
around 1.30 pm to execute a fresh bail bond
even as celebrities including actor Anupam
Kher, Ajay Devgn, Emraan Hashmi, music
director Anu Malik, director duo Abbas-Mastan
visited his house.
Earlier in the day, Salman's sister Alivra AgniCopyright 2012 Firstpost
Salman Khans bail justified or unusual?

Lawyers divided over Bombay HC decision
Tarique Anwar, May 8, 2015
ew Delhi: It took 13 years for a conclusion in the hit-and-run case involving

Salman Khan, but Fridays decision of
the Bombay High Court, granting bail to the
actor after he was convicted and sentenced to
five years in jail by the sessions court leaves the
case open again. The High Court had granted
the actor interim bail for two days on Wednesday; after the lapse of the period, his appeal
for suspension of the sentence was once again
heard and he was granted permanent bail till
next order. How does the legal fraternity view
the latest development?
homicide. "Even the honourable judge has made

the same observation as I came to know from
initial reports. The observation has merits," he
said. The court has observed that slapping Section 304 Part II of the IPC needs further consideration.
Similarly, Mittal added, another fact that has
emerged is "non-examination of Kamal Khan,
a singer, who was stated to be in the car at the
time of the incident". The court has also said
that "...a number of arguable points have been
raised, which need consideration". Salmans
counsel Amit Desai told the court that despite
interrogation by the investigating officer, the
statement of Ashok Singh, the driver of the actor, was not recorded.
The defence lawyer also brought to the notice
of the court that the trial court did not accept
the statements of Salmans body guard Ravindra Patil, the key witness of the case who is no
more, despite the fact he went on record during
an interview saying that there were four persons
in the car when it ran into a bakery killing one
and injuring three on the fateful night of 28
September, 2002.
Explaining the grounds of the bail, advocate KC

Mittal, senior lawyer of the Delhi High Court,
"In a criminal appeal, courts look into the conduct of the accused, whether there is any violation of natural justice and also broadly on the
facts of the case to reach the conclusion that the
case is fit for grant of bail. Courts always keep in
mind that the accused should be kept in custody or granted bail on the basis of the facts and
circumstances of the case. In this case, the order
has been passed considering all these aspects."
Raising questions on charging the actor under Section 304 Part II (culpable homicide not
amounting to murder), the veteran lawyer says
even if alcohol was found in the blood sample
of the accused, it does not amount to culpable
Mittal also wondered why the actor was not

provided a copy of the judgement soon after the
pronouncement of the trial courts verdict on
Wednesday. "I fail to understand why the copy
of the judgement was not kept ready at the time
of its pronouncement to afford proper opportunity for an appeal," he said.
Supreme Court advocate Rebecca Mammen
John finds the bail to Salman unusual. "I know
nothing about the Salman Khan case except that
it was a hit-and-run case and that a poor citizen
of this country died. I also know that Salman
Khan was convicted and handed out a five-year
sentence. When a person is sentenced to three
years or below, the CrPc allows the trial court to
suspend the sentence to enable the accused to
file an appeal in the higher court.

"But where a five-year sentence is handed out,
that rule does not apply and the accused is
taken into custody forthwith .The High Court's
order on Wednesday allowing him to go home
the same day and it's order today suspending
his sentence pending final disposal of his appeal, without his having served any time, is very
unusual. Processes must be respected and the
law must apply equally to everyone," she said.
Terming the High Courts decision justified
and as per law, Justice Kalimullah Khan, retired
judge of Allahabad High Court, said, "Section
389 of CrPc confers the power on the appellate
court to suspend the sentence awarded to the
accused appellant and to release the appellant
on bail. It provides that pending any appeal by
a convicted person, the appellate court may, for
reasons to be recorded by it him writing, order
that the execution of the sentence or order appeal against be suspended and, also, if he is in
confinement, that he be released on bail or on
his own bond."
He further says since the offences under which

accused Salman Khan was prosecuted are not
punishable with death or imprisonment for life
or imprisonment for a term of not less than 10
years, the appellate court (the Bombay High
Court in this case) "need not give opportunity
to the public prosecutor to petition in writing
against such release".
"The Bombay High Court is fully justified in
passing such orders, said Justice Khan.
Offering the same arguments in support of the
Bombay High Court order, senior Advocate
Feroz Khan Ghazi said there was no irregularity
in the HC order. "Being the appellate court in
this case, the High Court is empowered enough
to grant him or her bail."
Had the sentence been for less than or up to
three years, the same trial court would have
released him on a bail bond pending appeal in
higher court, he added.
Meherbani, Shukriya: Salman thanks
fans for their support, blessings

Sachin Gokhale, May 8, 2015
On reaching home from the Mumbai Sessions Court Salman posed for his fans with his mother
Salma and dad Salim. Firstpost/Sachin Gokhale
As expected, Salman was dramatic in his reaction, waving out to his fans in different styles. Firstpost/Sachin Gokhale
He also warned fans not to jump the police barricade, threatening to return back inside the house
if they misbehaved and didn't clear the area soon. Firstpost/Sachin Gokhale
And fans gathered outside Salman Khan's Bandra residence had to face the lathis of cops as they
tried their best to manage traffic. Firstpost/Sachin Gokhale
Evidently, all those who wanted to go to Bandra's famous Band Stand, had to face Salman's fans.
Firstpost/Sachin Gokhale
UnBHAIased ruling? #SalmanVerdict rules Twitter

after judge finds Khan guilty of culpable homicide
witter has predictably been aflutter thanks to the verdict by a Mumbai sessions court that
found Salman Khan guilty of culpable homicide, thirteen years after he is believed to have
run over pavement dwellers, killing one person.
Bollywood actor and accused in a hit-and-run case Salman Khan. Sachin Gokhale/Firstpost
Salman Khan has been convicted in the 2002 hit and run case. Sachin Gokhale/Firstpost
#SalmanVerdict was unsurprisingly the top trend on Twitter, given that it was the most discussed
topic on the social media site even before the verdict was pronounced.
The tweets were representational of almost every emotion humanly possible. From anger to disbelief to sadness to joy to self righteousness, it was all there, along with a (un?)healthy dose of Twitter wit.
Now is the time to truly Be Human...
Roads garib ke baap ki nahi hain:

Tone deaf Bollywood supports Salman
FP Staff May 6, 2015
alman Khan was sentenced to five years in jail in the 2002 hit-and-run case on Wednesday.
The reactions to this verdict can be distinguished into two broad classifications: those who
are for the "fair justice" and are glad to know that nobody is above the law and those who are disappointed with the judgment and think Salman is good man who deserves better.
It is no surprise that most of the Bollywood celebrities fall in the later category. You can call it personal loyalty or even industry loyalty, but celebrities who have tweeted out their opinion on Twitter
have stood in support of Salman.
While the likes of Karan Johar, Dia Mirza and Alia Bhatt have admitted that their reactions are
emotional and they extend their support to Salman's family, Abhijeet and Farah Ali Khan have
tweeted to say that people shouldn't sleep on the roads.
Abhijeet has gone further to say that he was homeless for a year and still didn't resort to the
streets.
Here are some tweets in Salman's support:
Sending Salman to jail will not
heal my leg: Victim of hit-and-run

PTI, May 6, 2015
umbai: "Compensation matters more

than conviction," say the victims of
the 2002 hit-and-run case in which
Bollywood star Salman Khan has been sentenced to five years in jail.
Abdullah Rauf Shaikh, who lost a leg in the accident, said, "Nobody came to visit me in the last
13 years. I am forced to do petty jobs to support
my family and face a lot of problems."
"However, I have no hard feelings for him
(Salman).I still watch his movies," he said, adding they were not pressurised by anyone.
"Compensation matters more than conviction,
my health and work suffered," Shaikh said.
"If Salman is punished, I will not be benefited

in any way as neither my leg will heal nor my
problems would go away."
Instead if they compensate us then we do not
have any problem," he said, recalling that he
was 22 years old when he lost his leg in the
incident.
The wife of Nurullah Mehboob Sharif, who died
in the accident, said, "We were told we will get a
compensation of Rs 10 lakh, but what will we do
of that amount at this time of inflation."
She said that she would be benefited if her son
gets a job.
Farahs gems: Jewelry designer says
people shouldnt sleep on roads

ollywood actor Salman Khan was convicted for culpable homicide in the 13-year old hitand-run case and sentenced to five years imprisonment on Wednesday. Unsurprisingly,
the film and glamour industry came out in full support of the star, from tweeting out in his
defense to rushing to his Bandra residence.
But some celebs took the adage 'offense is the best form of defense' too seriously, as they blamed
the government, the poor and even the roads but Salman, for the the crime and conviction.
At the forefront of this offense was Farah Khan Ali, who is a jewelry designer by profession but is
probably best known for being the sister of actor Zayed Khan and wife of DJ Aqeel.
She tweeted out in vociferous defense of Salman with ridiculous reasons for why the accident occurred and why the punishment was too harsh.
Firstly, she implied that the the pavement dwelling victims were responsible for the hit-and-run
as they should not have been sleeping on the road in the first place because it is 'as dangerous as
crossing the tracks'.
She then went on to say that Salman is a good human who did not want to kill anyone but had to
pay the price. Plus his punishment shouldn't be too harsh because the livelihood of many people
depended on Salman being out of prison.
Here are some of Farah's gems (pun intended) on Twitter
She went on to clarify that her tweets were aimed at the government's failure rather than mocking
the poor.
In an interview with CNN IBN, Ali admitted that Salman was at fault but insisted that he would
never have killed someone if no one was sleeping on the footpath. "Sleeping on the footpath is dangerous, it's like saying that you want to be run over by a car, whether the man is drunk or whether
it is a normal accident. It's like crossing the train tracks," said Ali.
"Salman made a mistake and he deserves to be punished for it but five years is too harsh. Even the
victims don't want him to get a harsh punishment," she added.
Shares of Eros, Mandhana tank as
Salman Khan gets 5 years in jail

PTI, May 6, 2015
ros Media and Mandhana Industries

Ltd, the entities associated with Samlan
Khan, came under intense selling pressure today after the Bollywood actor was convicted in the 2002 hit-and-run case.
Mandhana Industries is associated with the

actor's NGO 'Being Human'. It has an exclusive licence agreement with Being Human - the
Salman Khan Foundation - for designing, marketing and distributing Being Human Clothing
Products.
Eros International Media had in December announced its collaboration on the two maiden
productions of Salman Khan Films - Bajrangi
Bhaijaan and Hero.
Salman Khan was convicted of all charges,
including culpable homicide not amounting to
murder, in the 2002 hit-and-run case.
Reacting to the news, Eros International scrip

plunged 5.66 percent to Rs 381 on the BSE,
while Mandhana Industries slumped 4.74 per
cent to Rs 263.10.
The court has sentenced him to 5-year imprisonment for culpable homicide not amounting to
murder.
The actor was convicted for ramming his car,
while drunk, into a roadside bakery at suburban Bandra in the early hours of September
28, 2002, killing one person and injuring four
others.
Out of love for bhaijaan, Salman Khan-themed
restaurant in Mumbai shuts for a day
Zenia DCunha May 7, 2015
lot was riding on the verdict of the Salman Khan 13-year old hit-and-run case, and his conviction sparked off a chain of diverse reactions across sectors.
From the falling shares of Eros International Media to the ceaseless defence of the actor by the film
industry, which almost bordered on ridiculous, the actor's conviction created a furore on Wednesday.
But no one seems to be as affected as Khan's fans. While conjoined twins Saba and Farah from Bihar, who are supposed to Salman's Rakhi-sisters went on a fast to show their support, another fan
offered to be imprisoned in Salman's place.
Closer home to Mumbai, a Salman Khan-themed restaurant called Bhaijaanz in Bandra, shut shop
for a day on Wednesday after the Bollywood actor was convicted and sentenced to five years rigorous imprisonment.
Bhaijaanz was started on 9 March 2015 by a group of die-hard Salman fans and is practically a
shrine to the actor.
"We shut the restaurant for the love of Salman Khan," Zafar Sayed Yusuf, one of the co-owners,
told Firstpost.
"We were at the court the whole day and by evening there was no point opening it. You can call it a
protest or you can say it is our fan following for bhaijaan," he said.
Before the verdict was announced, Bhaijaanz were planning to announce a 50 percent discount if
the actor was acquitted. The offer still stands, depending on the high court's decision, but Yusuf
has even bigger plans if it goes in Salman's favour.
"We are hoping the high court releases him. If he gets out, we will surely invite him over to Bhaijaanz," he said.
Not just the owners, the employees of Bhaijaanz are also huge fans of Salman. Basu Rawat, the
cashier at the restaurant said, "We were shut yesterday because we were very sad with the verdict,
he is a good man and should not have been punished. We are open again today."
Everything at Bhaijaanz, from the decor to the menu, is an ode to Khan. The walls of the restaurant
are covered with his posters while the menu is categorized according to his films and songs. Sample this- the rice section is called 'chulbul chawal' and the teas are under 'garam chai ki pyali ho'.
There is even an entire page dedicated to 'Dabangg 1' and 'Dabangg 2' dishes.
The restaurant's decision to show solidarity with Salman sparked off reactions on social media
after their official account tweeted images of the shut down. "Many people have actually come here
to take pictures today after reading about in on Facebook and Twitter," said Yusuf.
While Salman's fate is yet to be sealed, it is evident that despite all his faults, the man's fans are
willing to go to great lengths for him.
What does the ruling mean for

Brand Salman and his movies?
Brand Salman in grave danger

Deepak Ajwani May 7, 2015
ust a few months ago Salman Khan

made headlines for all the right reasons:
He made it to the top of Forbes India
Celebrity 100 List , claiming the throne from
two-time list topper Shah Rukh Khan, earned a
whopping Rs 244.5 crore last year and topped
both the fame and earnings rank. Brand Salman
was at its peak.
Today, though, there is a twist in the tale. With

the Mumbai sessions court verdict sentencing him to five years in prison for the 2002
hit-and-run case when he drove an SUV onto a
pavement in Mumbai, killing one person, brand
Salman is in grave danger.
With more than 10 brands that he endorses and
two upcoming movies (Prem Ratan Dhan Payo
and Bajrangi Bhaijan), about Rs 250 crore ride
on brand Salman. Although he has received an
interim bail for two days before he goes to prison, what remains to be seen is how this court
verdict changes his career trajectory. If one goes
by what happened with his friend and co-star
Sanjay Dutt when he went behind bars, this is
certainly not good news. He stands to lose it all.
Harish Bijoor, CEO at Harish Bijoor Consults
Inc, says there are three brand entities around
Salman Khan: First is brand Salman himself,
second is the brand Being Human created and
promoted by him, while the third is the series
of brands he endorses. According to Bijoor, the
verdict will affect each of these brands differently.

To the first it will mean an erosion of personal
equity and integrity quotient. His hero status
of being a clean and a straight-forward person
gets affected. For the brand Being Human it
shouldnt make any difference at all. It is the
only brand that will continue his endorsement,
and convey the softer side of Salman Khan. In
fact, it will be a revival vehicle for the brand
Salman Khan, says Bijoor. So the brand Khan
helped create will, in turn, help resuscitate his
own brand equity if he serves the five year sentence, believes Bijoor.
When Khan spoke to us in December, he agreed
with this. Being Human, Khan says, is as big
as he is. Actually, if this current dream run of
success is being attributed to his work with the
foundation, and if, in effect, it was the foundation that lifted him, surely it was even bigger
than him? Besides, thats what all the brand
extensions and expansions are for: To ensure
that the money keeps coming in, and that Being
Human outlives him.
On the commercial brands that Khan endorses,
Bijoor says, Most brands are fickle; they support only positive sentiments. So I suspect they
will withdraw. They have already benefited from
the upside; soon they will stop airing his endorsements.
The stock market has already reacted by pushing down prices of Eros International by 5 percent, while shares of Mandhana Industries are
down by 4 percent. Eros has recently acquired
global distribution rights for two of Khan's upcoming movies, while Mandhana Industries has
the mandate to design and distribute the Being
Human clothing range.
What we wrote in December 2014 about Being
Human highlights the importance and risk his
favourite brand carries today if his fans fall out
of favour and stop buying its merchandise:
Being Human started life as a T-shirt. It is now

a clothing brand, sold in 14 countries, with 30
standalone stores and 160 shop-in-shop outlets
in India; abroad, there are 80 shop-in-shops
in GCC countries and 55 in Europe. (Licensee
Mandhana Industries makes, distributes and
markets its products; Khan oversees design and
communication.) It is now expanding into a
lifestyle brand, with fragrances, watches, gym
equipment, and other products. In 2013-14, the
license brought Rs 132 crore; all of Khan's share
it goes to Being Human, the charitable trust he
set up in 2007, and to which he has assigned
the brand in perpetuity. It has, since then,
disbursed over Rs 32.5 crore through its health
care and education projects.
All this comes to nought if brand Salman Khan
gets affected by the prolonged jail sentence.
His movie revenues, the brands he endorses or
the foundation he runs entirely depend on one
entityhim. With him behind bars, all the work
comes to a grinding halt and many more producers who had lined up projects with him, but
havent begun shooting, might need to replace
him rather than wait for five years.
Bollywood, though, has rallied behind him
and have been tweeting in his favour. From
his protg Arjun Kapoor to co-star Sonakshi
Sinha, singer Mika singh to actors Rishi Kapoor,
Riteish Deshmukh, Bipasha Basu and even Alia
Bhatt all have expressed shock on the verdict
and sympathy for Khan.
One of the most bankable Bollywood stars, who
has proved his mettle time and again at the
box-office in the past few years, he has lined up
some big releases in the next few years. Here
are some that have been announced:
a) Bajrangi Bhaijaan: To be directed by Kabir

Khan whose earlier film Ek Tha Tiger earned
more than Rs 200 crore. Bajrangi Bhaijaan has
been scheduled to release on Eid this year. Khan
was shooting for this film at Srinagar and had to
fly back to Mumbai for the court verdict today.
b) Prem Ratan Dhan Payo: After many years,
Salman has once again teamed up with Sooraj
Barjatya and the film was slated to release on
Diwali. Khan plays a double role in this movie
after many years. He last did a double role for
Judwaa (1997), which was a hit.
c) Shuddhi: This is a film by Karan Johar and
has already seen many changes in its star cast.
Earlier Hrithik Roshan was supposed to act in
it, then finally Khan agreed and it would have
been the first lead star movie of Khan with Johar. But no one knows its fate now.
Two other films that had been lined up but
production was yet to begin are No Entry Mein
Entry and Yash Raj Films Sultan to be directed
by Ali Abbas Zafar, where Khan plays a boxer.
A few months ago when we met Khan, he shared
this about his bad boy image: Im still the bad
boy. But to the bad people. Im no saint, dude.
I party. I party like hell when I want to. I still
do that, but I come back, to this. The gesture
encompassed both his acting and the charitable
foundation.
The movie producers who bet on him and
brands that opted for his endorsement would be
pinning their hopes on his comeback.
This article was first published in Forbes India
Five years of jail, so what?

Its not the death of Brand Salman
hen Salman Khan is sentenced to jail,

there is a lot more than prison time
at stake. Given that he is one of the
stalwarts of India's entertainment industry, a
lot of money - be it from movies in the pipeline,
endorsements or other engagements - is on the
line.
Currently, bhai is everywhere. From movie
posters to advertising billboards to pop up ads
on the websites we browse. And he brings the
cash rolling in.
around Rs 200 crore riding on the actor in

terms of future projects. And these are just confirmed films like Bajrangi Bhaijaan" and "Prem
Ratan Dhan Payo" which are nearing completion.
If rumoured projects like Anees Bazmee's No
Entry sequel and "Kick sequel are taken into
account, the figures will shoot up.
According to Forbes, Khan was the richest Indian celebrity in 2014, raking in a whopping Rs.
244.5 crore during the year. Another site listed
him as the tenth richest actor in the world, on a
list topped by Jerry Seinfeld and featuring the
likes of Tom Hanks, Will Smith and Brad Pitt.
According to a report in Mint, an estimated

Rs.45 crore is riding on his brand endorsements, according to celebrity management
professionals. The report further notes:"Salman
Khan is the brand ambassador for a clutch of
brands, including soft drink Thums Up, detergent brand Wheel, P.N. Gadgil Jewellers and
Astral Pipes. He has also hosted the reality show
Bigg Boss on Colors for the last few seasons."
The success of movies like Dabangg and Ek Tha

Tiger have helped to strengthen his brand value,
and according to industry estimates, there is
In addition to that. his Being Human brand,

which is being retailed across the country in
partnership with Mandhana Industries Ltd is
also a money spinner. Here's an infographic on

just how much he's estimated to be worth:
According to this report in the Indian Express,
Being Human apparel currently accounts for 10
percent of Mandhanas global sales and brought
in roughly Rs 170 crore, up 29.7 percent from
Rs 131 crore a year earlier.
That - to put it bluntly - is a lot of money, all of
it riding on the lasting endearments of brand
Salman.
The importance of the actor in relation to these
projects was evident in the fact that the shares
of Mandhana Industries Ltd plummeted after
the verdict. Of course, it is hard to pinpoint how
much of this was influenced by the verdict and
how much of it was caused by the Sensex crash,
but experts quoted in the report say that some
part of the fall was definitely due to the conviction.
Is this a sign of things to come for brand Salman? Will everything he is associated with, lose
value? Experts at this point are still divided.
The Bollywood industry so far it seems, is not
overly worried. Industry expert Amod Mehra
told the IANS news agency that There is no
panic in the film industry or in anybody's mind,
thanks to the laws in India. It is because we all
are very clear that there are other ways to come
out as well like bail. So there is no question of
panicking over his arrest as of now".
The report also quoted another trade expert,
Vinod Mirani as saying, "If the decision is not
in his favour, he will appeal to a higher court.
Nobody goes to jail so fast. He will appeal and
then that court will undertake proceedings of
the case which will take time".
A good point, it would seem, considering that
the verdict in the case has come after 13 years in
the first place.

In terms of endorsements, experts seem to be
of the opinion that although his local endorsements may not be affected, multinational deals
may suffer.
"Salman's popularity, in absolute terms, would
not have gone down much. The problem is with
his conviction. Certainly multinational brands
(and large Indian brands) cannot be seen to be
associated with a convict -- even if they would
love to leverage his obvious popularity," Storyboard editor Anant Rangaswami said.
As far as the fate of Being Human is concerned,
Mandhana Industries appear to be quite positive. The Express report quoted Manish Mandhana, managing director of the company as
saying, "As of now, I dont see any immediate
impact on our sales. Our business has grown by
leaps and bounds in the last three years and will
continue to grow.
Experts however feel that the brand is likely to
suffer a crippling blow, with some saying that it
is difficult for associated brands to recover from
hits to an endorsers credibility.
At this point however, it is hard to say for sure,
what the impact on 'Brand Salman' will be,
given that we don't even know how much of his
jail sentence he will actually have to serve.
The actor got bail within an hour of his sentencing, and could well be allowed to stay out of jail
while he appeals the verdict. As pointed out by
a Bollywood industry expert in this Firstpost
story, It takes a lot of time to send somebody
to jail. It can even take ten years and in 10-15
years, he will be over 60 years old".
That's plenty of time for 'Brand Salman' to keep
motoring on.
No Entry to Kick: With Rs 200 crore riding
on Salman Khan, here are the films in jeopardy

IANS, May 6, 2015
ew Delhi: After a lot of twists and turns

in the 2002 hit-and-run case involving superstar Salman Khan, the actor
was found guilty of all charges against him on
Wednesday.
But despite being held guilty by the sessions
court, the film industry does not seem to be too
anxious, despite over Rs.200 crore riding on the
actor.
This is the slow legal processes in India.
time, Mirani told IANS.

The "Wanted" actor has been facing trial for 13
years in the Bandra accident case. In the early
hours of September 28, 2002, an SUV drove
over the pavement where some people were
sleeping, killing one person and ijuring four
others. Salman is the main accused in the accident and a Mumbai Sessions Court is schedule
to pronounce its verdict on Wednesday.
A glance at his professional assignments show
Salman is gearing up for several offerings at the
box office this year. Two of his much-anticipated films -- Bajrangi Bhaijaan" and "Prem Ratan
Dhan Payo" are nearing completion.
Bajrangi Bhaijaan, which also stars Kareena
Kapoor Khan, is about a Brahmin girl and Muslim boy, while the "Dabangg" star will be seen
revisiting his popular cinema name 'Prem' in
Sonam Kapoor starrer family entertainer.
The total cost of the two films would be around
Rs. 200 crore plus. So that is the amount riding
on him at present, Mehra said.
Industry expert Amod Mehra said that no one

can imagine Salman being soon lodged behind
bars.
There is no panic in the film industry or in anybody's mind, thanks to the laws in India. It is
because we all are very clear that there are other
ways to come out as well like bail. So there is no
question of panicking over his arrest as of now,
Mehra told IANS.
On the same note, another trade expert, Vinod
Mirani said that even if he is sentenced by the
court, Salman is unlikely to be sent to jail soon.
If the decision is not in his favour, he will appeal to a higher court. Nobody goes to jail so
fast. He will appeal and then that court will undertake proceedings of the case which will take
If rumoured projects like Anees Bazmee's No

Entry sequel and "Kick sequel are taken into
account, the figures will shoot up. But Mirani
asserts that there is no cause to worry as of now.
It takes a lot of time to send somebody to jail.
It can even take ten years, Mirani said.
Citing actor Sanjay Dutt's example, where the
actor was sent to prison after several years,
Mehra said nothing serious will happen immediately.
He said it will take about 10-15 years for Salman
to go behind bars till then he will be over 60
years old," Mehra said.
Sanjay Dutt is in jail for illegal possession of
arms during the 1993 Mumbai bomb blasts and
riots.
The film industry may not worry, but if industry
reports are true, 49-year-old Salman has not
been accepting any new projects till the verdict
is pronounced.
The trouble for the actor, who enjoys wide
female fan following with his dance moves and

witty one-liners, will not be overwith the accident case.
The dark clouds of Blackbuck case is still hovering over him. The actor is facing trial for hunting a black buck during the shooting of Hum
Saath Saath Hain in 1998.
The Firstpost Verdict
Hit and run affirms Salmans amazing
record: 3 convictions, six days in jail

Sandipan Sharma, May 9, 2015
ext time you hesitate in taking the

wheel after getting sloshed, get inspired
by the true story of Salman Khan.
But for the minor inconvenience of having a

breath analyzer thrust down your throat and
getting a small ticket-which can be managed if
you are lucky to find somebody waiting for chai
paani -there is very little to fear.
right in granting bail till the case is decided to

ensure that an innocent man doesn't suffer. This
is the established procedure in India and the
High Court has followed the standard practice.
But the problem with the system is that it works
best for the rich and the privileged. For many
others, securing bail is impossible even when
they have not been convicted and are just facing
trial.
A few years ago, The Hindu had revealed that
more than 75 percent prisoners in Indian jails
are undertrials. More than 3200 persons out
of the nearly 2.8 lakh undertrials have already
spent five years in jail.
Compare this with a celebrity like Salman Khan,
accused of repeat offences. Around ten years
ago, Salman was sentenced to a year in jail for
poaching protected animals in Jodhpur. Some
months later, he was sentenced again this
time for five years.
Get drunk, drive like a Formula One racer and

don't bother stepping on the brake. In case you
notice human beings on the road, don't worry
about Being Human. Bear in mind singer Abhijieet's advice: 'kutta road pe soyega, road pe
marega.'
The latest twist in the story of Salman's hit-andrun case has just one moral: the faster you can
drive, the more money you can burn, the farther
you can run from the law.
While the court took 13 years to send Salman to
jail, his lawyers took just a few hours to get him
out on bail. Indeed, a great advertisement for
drunken driving!
The Bombay High Court is justified in suspending Salman's 5-year sentence. When a convict approaches a higher court with an appeal
against a lower court's judgement, the judge is
The five-year sentence in the hit-and-run case

by the Mumbai court means Salman has been
convicted thrice so far, he is facing a combined
sentence of 11 years. Yet, he has spent just a few
days behind bars.
Salman's hit-and-run case has often been compared with that of Alistair Anthony Pereira's,
who was sent to jail for three years for driving
his car over six persons in Mumbai. Though
a lower court had let off Pereira with just six
months in jail, the Supreme Court had later
upheld the tougher punishment granted by the
Bombay High Court. It had also commented
that the punishment in such cases should be
much more. Pereira, like Salman, was found
guilty under Section 304 (2) of the IPC.
It would be relevant to quote a part of the SC
verdict on Pereira.
"The object should be to protect society and

to deter the criminal in achieving the avowed
object of law by imposing appropriate sentence.
It is expected that the courts would operate the
sentencing system so as to impose such sentence which reflects the conscience of the society and the sentencing process has to be stern
where it should be."
Even the Supreme Court would be wondering if

we have learnt the right lesson from its verdict
in Pereira's case: that fear of severe punishment
will deter people from drunk driving.
Or, if Salman's story has a more powerful message: drink, drive; don't worry about the punishment.
The court will be failing in its duty if appropriate punishment is not awarded for a crime
which has been committed not only against the
individual victim but also against the society to
which the criminal and victim belong.
The punishment to be awarded for a crime must
not be irrelevant but it should conform to and
be consistent with the atrocity and brutality
with which the crime has been perpetrated, the
enormity of the crime warranting public abhorrence and it should "respond to the society's cry
for justice against the criminal."
Sabse bada rupaiya: Did you think Salman
Khan would be jailed for 5 years? Pity

Piyashree Dasgupta, May 8, 2015
id you OD on your mid-week beer, visualising Salman Khan serving a watery

dal to fellow prisoners in your very
Bollywood-tinted imagination? Did you have
wonderful jokes lined up about how the number
of days he spent in jail would be directly proportional to the number of packs on his abdomen?
Did you relish the deep irony in the name of his
blockbuster Wanted? Though you couldn't believe this was happening, did you still say 'jai ho'
to Indian law when Khan finally got sentenced,
over a decade after he had run over men sleeping on a pavement, killing one?
No wonder then, from memes to jokes, from

long paeans to the Indian justice system to
articles on what the judgement means to us, all
forms of the media were flooded with evidence
that few expected Salman Khan to be really
convicted.
The Mumbai sessions court's decision shocked

us. The intense anguish and immense joy displayed by fans and critics alike after the verdict
was announced on Wednesday both showed
how we are reconciled to the fact that the law
works differently for different people in the
country. And when something to the contrary
happens, we can't believe our eyes or ears. Jubilant or aghast, we were all in shock.
Actor Arjun Kapoor tweeted this after the verdict came.
It's quite ironic that Kapoor finds the incident

of Khan's conviction 'fickle' - given that running over a man and killing him is a punishable
offence by the law of the land. We, who don't
enjoy the privileges of being Salman Khan, are
dead sure that we would be jailed if we were
guilty of an accident. Yet, we were shocked that
the court eventually nailed Khan.
But, as you must have gathered by now, you can
to snap out of that reverie already. Khan's sentence has been suspended by the Bombay High
Court. Salman Khan's lawyers will file an appeal
against the sessions court verdict. The state will
appeal. Then the high court will consider the
appeal. Depending on the verdict the matter will
then go to the Supreme Court.
Which means Khan is not going to jail anytime
soon.
This sounds more like the country you know.
You have gone back to having realistic expectations of your country again - like feeling suicidal
while trying to get some job done at a government office, not expecting government websites to work, being terrified of making a trip to
the police station even if to lodge a complaint.
Because one belief you have always maintained
about the country has just been proven true
again after one brief, and what seems now
aberrant, moment. That while you and the rich,
popular and the powerful are technically under
the same system, it reality it works differently
for different classes of society. You, unfortunately, aren't the one it favours at all times.
However, given it took 13 years for the country's judiciary to pin Khan down, the bail, which
came before you could blink, feels exceptionally
unfair. Two hours to bail. Two days to sentence
suspension. While it's might be legally sound,
one cannot help but feel it takes ages to convict
the rich and the famous for heinous crimes, but
with a good and expensive lawyer, it doesn't
take them too long to get out of the clutches of
law.
Contrast this to case of the Class XII student in
Uttar Pradesh, who had posted a status update
on Facebook critical of Azam Khan. The moment the minister's PRO filed a complaint, he
was arrested and taken into custody. The proceedings took its own pace and didn't happen
super fast, like it did in case of Khan. That's the
difference between a common man at the receiving end of law, even unfairly and a celebrity.
This rollercoaster journey in the last two days
shows how we are conditioned to expect the rich
and the famous to have undue privileges, law
be damned. And we have strangely made peace
with it too.
We took this Salman Khan episode as proof to
convince us that we were wrong in being cynical. It was meant to remind us that the country
has the same law for all its citizens. And it did.
But we didn't realise picture abhi baaki hai. The
postscript reminded us that how the law works
for you depends on how deep your pockets are.
Honestly, the Bombay High Court's decision

is not surprising. It's bolstered legally too. "As
per the country's law, in a case in which the
sentence is less than seven years and the decision has been appealed then bail is the rule, jail
is the exception. The court has to be convinced
that there is no case for bail and not the other
way round," said a lawyer friend.
Salman Khans defenders are
as silly as Sanjay Dutts

Vivek Kaul May 6, 2015
he actor Salman 'Bhai' Khan has been

pronounced guilty by a Mumbai court in
the 2002 hit and run case.
The court said that Khan was driving without

a license and was under the influence of alcohol. The actor was driving back home (he lives
in Galaxy Apartment at Bandstand in Bandra,
Mumbai) late night on 28 September 2002,
when he lost control of the SUV, drove on to a
pavement outside a bakery in Bandra and killed
one person and injured four others, in the process.
He has been sentenced to a prison term of five

years.
Multiple theories have been offered in support
of the actor by his lawyers, fans and others who
have followed this hit and run case closely.
Khan's lawyers submitted the balance sheet of
his charity Being Human in court and argued
that the star had sponsored the heart surgeries
of 600 children.
Charity is always good. But that doesn't cancel
out the fact that Khan was drunk while driving
an SUV and killed one person and injured four
others as a result. And given that the law of the
land should take its course, charity cannot be a

reason to pardon wrongdoing.
If that were to be the case, alcoholic drivers
would regularly run their SUVs on to pavements, kill and injure people, and then start
doing charity.
His lawyers also submitted a certificate in
court which said that the actor suffered from
arteriovenus malformation in the setting of
right trigeminal neuralgia. Wikipedia defines
trigeminal neuralgia as neuropathic isorder
characterized by episodes of intense pain in the
face, originating from the trigeminal nerve.
Khan's lawyers pleaded for a light sentence on
this basis.
The question of course, is if the actor has this
disease why is he doing two films at the same
time? (Bajrangi Bhaijaan, opposite Kareena
Kapoor, and Prem Ratan Dhan Paayo opposite
Sonam Kapoor). He is also scheduled to star in
four other movies including Dabangg 3 and Entry Mein No Entry. If the actor has this disease
and is not in best shape how come he has committed to so many movies? Maybe his lawyers
can answer that.
Outside the court, it has been argued that there
is Rs 200 crore riding on the actor.
The thing here however, is that this accident did
not happen yesterday. It happened in September 2002.
Every producer who has signed Khan since then
has known that there was a risk that he might
be arrested. The possibility that Khan might
have to go to jail was a business risk that they
were taking. Unfortunately that risk has come to
be true.
The film industry, as expected, has come out in
support of Khan. The actress Sonakshi Sinha

tweeted that Khan was a good man and no one
can take that away from him.
He may be a good man but what about the individual who was killed due to Khan's rash driving? And what about the four others who were
injured? Weren't they good people as well?
All the support that seems to be coming out for
Salman Khan is very similar to the support that
came out in favour of Sanjay Dutt when he was
convicted in the 1993 Mumbai bomb blasts case.
When Dutt was convicted, similar specious arguments were made in his favour.
One argument which gained a fair amount of
popularity was that he is a good man and hence
should not go to jail. Justice Markandaya Katju
argued that Dutt has through his film had revived the memory of Mahatma Gandhi and the
message of Gandhiji, the father of the nation.
The movies Katju was talking about were Munnabhai MBBS and Lageraho Munnabhai. Dutt
did not make these movies, he just acted in
them. The movies were the vision of director
Rajkumar Hirani, who also co-wrote them.
In fact, Dutt was not even supposed to play
the role of Munnabhai in Munnabhai MBBS.
The original choice for the role was Shah Rukh
Khan, who later declined due to a back injury.
So Sanjay Dutt was simply lucky to have first
landed and then played the role that made Gandhi fashionable again. And that was no reason
to let him off the hook.
Mamata Banerjee, the chief minister of West

Bengal, argued that Sanjay Dutt should be let
off because his father Sunill Dutt was a good
man.
Today, I fondly remember Sunil Dutt ji. He
used to come to my residence whenever he was
in Calcutta. If he were alive, he would have no
doubt made all efforts to see that Sanjay does
not suffer any more. My heart echoes the same
sentiments , she wrote on Facebook.
This was another specious argument.
If sons were to be released because their fathers
were good individuals, who would ever get
convicted? Let's take the case of the late Head
Constable Ibrahim Kaskar of Mumbai police.
As S Hussain Zaidi writes in Dongri to Dubai
Six Decades of the Mumbai Mafia , that In the
predominantly Muslim stronghold of Dongri,
Ibrahims baithak was the first place people
went to if they had a problem. It was privy to
everything-from people discussing their choking
lavatory drain to the excitement of the elopement of lovers or cases of police harassment.
Kaskars son is Dawood Ibrahim.
The point being that it is easy to offer specious
arguments in favour of individuals convicted
by courts. At the end of the day what matters
is the law of the land. If that is being correctly
implemented(even though many years late)
everything else is a non-issue.
(Vivek Kaul is the author of the Easy Money trilogy. He tweets @kaul_vivek)
Friends of Salman Khan,

do us a favour and stop tweeting
Rajyasree Sen May 8, 2015
esterday was a study in why some people should never have been taught to read, write or
communicate with others. And no, I dont think Im being too harsh.
Superstar (he cannot be described as an ordinary Bollywood actor) Salman Khan was sentenced
to five years in prison for running over five pavement dwellers, 12 years ago. Four of them were
injured leading to loss of limb in one; another died. In the years between the original incident
and Khans conviction, Khan roamed around freely, earning multiple crores through his films and
promotions, doing charitable work and campaigning for politicians like Sri Lankas Mahinda Rajapaksa.
As far as the case was concerned, there were denials by Khan, a chauffeur who obligingly popped
up out of nowhere and claimed to have been at the wheel on that fateful night, and other obfuscations. When the verdict was announced yesterday, Khan reportedly stayed calm in court. The same
cannot be said for his colleagues from Bollywood or friends in Mumbai. They went into a veritable
overdrive of verbal diarrhoea and an overt display of how disconnected they were from reality and
propriety.
If you were on Twitter yesterday, the onslaught of tweets from celebrities following the verdict was
difficult to survive. I understand everyone loves Salman Khan; mainly hes Bill Gates-meets-Kid
Rock-meets-Johny Depp. He seems to be some sort of benefactor, do-gooder and party boy, all
rolled into one. Unfortunately, he also appears to have a dash of Chris Brown and Puru Raj Kumar
in him. Still, one can understand why his colleagues would want to voice their love and support for
him. After all, thanks to him, many have careers in Bollywood and money to spend.
But must they voice their love for him at the risk of sounding like bimbos stuck in ivory towers?
This is a collection of just a few of the gems we were subjected to yesterday. Leading the light-onmorality brigade was of course jewellery designer Farah Khan Ali, who seems to have an IQ of 2, at
best. According to her
No one has obviously told Farah Khan Ali that people sleep on the road because they have nowhere
else to sleep. Also, they were sleeping on an elevated pavement, not expecting a drunken superstar
to drive on to the pavement and over them. However, thats too much logic for Khan Ali, it seems.
The singer Abhijeet followed this up with
(Shes deleted the tweet, but its seared into some of our memories.)
Parineeti Chopra displayed that all the education in the world cant stop you from casting aspersions on what should effect a judges verdict inner beauty or a murder committed.
Bipasha Basu decided not to exert herself and instead quoted a doyen of propriety and stellar judgment, the Bombay Times editor Priya Gupta. Im just happy we were spared a picture of Deepika
Padukones cleavage, thrown in for entertainment value.
And if you think Im picking on Chopra and other actors who seem to be hell-bent on proving
they shouldnt open their mouths unless theyve been given a written script, even if they have only
140 characters with which to display their ignorance politicians werent far behind.
Member of Parliament, Milind Deora had this to say:
Since Khan had touched the lives of the pavement dwellers quite deeply, Im hazarding a guess that
the verdict and sentence werent a major setback for them.
Its bad enough when you tweet something insensitive. Its worse when you try and explain it, as
both Farah Khan Ali and Abhijeet tried to, making the case for themselves and their fraternity
even worse.
Khan Alis garbled arguments on NDTV and Headlines Today amounted to her criticising the government who should provide housing for everyone. After all, we pay taxes, so why should we see
people sleeping on the streets? Of course people will keep getting drunk and driving on pavements,
so these accidents will keep happening if the government doesnt ensure housing for everyone.
Now do you get why I think her broadband and 3G access should be taken away from her?
Abhijeet went one step better while explaining his low IQ and stupid tweets. On Headlines Today,
he said and I quote Why should any human die like a dog? Twitter there is a limitation. Salman or anyone, they ever kill a person who sleep on the road. If suicide is a crime, then sleeping on
the road should also be a crime. There should be a law against it. Abhijeets only saving grace is
that his grammar is so bad, its difficult to tell precisely what he means by they ever kill a person
who sleep on the road.
Even if you set Dumb and Dumber aside, consider what Khans other colleagues are saying. Dia
Mirza said Khan saved her mother. Others pointed out what a kind and wonderful person he is and
that hes saved many other lives. Ergo, the verdict is unfair.
Journalist Bachi Karkaria said it best on NDTV when she said that just because hes paid for the
medical treatment of however many people at last count, it seemed Khan has treated more children than Doctors Across Borders has it doesnt absolve you of or give you the right to murder
one person. Thats not how life works. Or the justice system, thankfully.
Even I had tweeted that Puru Raj Kumar and Sanjeev Nanda got away with just a couple of years in
jail for running over and murdering many more people. And that I do feel that a necessary example
is being made of celebrities and that no one is above the law. Today, with the spread of social media and the public pressure you can exert through it, it is very difficult I would say almost impossible for public figures to get away with committing any crime or misdemeanour.
Also, thanks to social media especially Twitter celebrities are no longer able to stay secure and
away from the commoners. Because some of them lack a filter, we are now privy to their drawing
room utterances at which we could previously only guess. The fact is that if youre a public figure,
you cant just shoot off 140 characters of rubbish and think you wont be taken to task for it. If you
think otherwise, it shows a complete absence of understanding of the medium and its users.
What Twitter and our celebrities propensity for shooting their mouths off has done is prove to us
that sometimes people are just pretty botoxed faces. And that the popular opinion that celebrities
feel that they can get away with anything whether it be beating up fellow diners at Wasabi, or
sexually assaulting their colleagues maid is correct. That they might actually have to do the time
for their crime seems like a bitter pill to swallow.
It would be advisable that their PR teams teach them how to exercise as much social media dexterity on their personal tweets as they do to promote their films. Its bad enough that we have to deal
with celebrities halal-ing black bucks, walloping others and running over people in real life; at least
spare us the onslaught of idiocy in the virtual world.
Salman Khans punishment is
richly deserved
Sandipan Sharma May 6, 2015
alman Khan found an innocent man to

take his blame, turned a portly politician
from Rajasthan into a Bollywood star
and her daughter into a playback singer. Between court appearances, he gave valuable tips
to the son of a chief minister on how to grow
hair on his bald head. Like a common baraati,
Bhai wiggled his pelvis on the streets of Jaipur
to appease politicians; and, like a VIP criminal,
spent money like water in the courts of Jodhpur
and Mumbai to hire lawyers and influence witnesses.
For 15 years Salman tried every possible trick

in true tarikh-pe-tarikh traditionto escape
punishment. He changed lawyers, deceived
courts, courted the media, airbrushed his imagefrom the bad boy of Bollywood he tried
Being Human. Yet, he is going to jail, getting the
deserved punishment for his karma.
This sounds like a clich, but Salmans conviction is the perfect opportunity to reiterate this:
Indian Kanoon isnt Andha and it indeed has
long hands. Chulbul Robinhood Pandey can
retire in peace now. The Indian criminal justice
system is in safe hands; it doesnt require the
services of Dabangg cops to dispense punishment.
There are two ways to look at Salmans conviction. It can be argued that he managed to stay
out of jail for several years because of his clout
and money. Salman has been on trial in five
casesfour related to poaching spotted deer
and black bucks in Jodhpur and one for mowing down people on the streets of Mumbai. Yet,
in spite of two convictions before Wednesdays
judgment, Salman spent just a few hours in jail.
Last time he was incarcerated, Salman Khan
found it difficult to sleep in a 10X10 barrack
of Jodhpurs Central Jail. It is unlikely that
he will find it any easier in Mumbais equally
uncomfortable Arthur Road jail, at least on
the first night. While he tosses and turns in his
cell tonight, Salman could ask himself a simple
question: What did he gain from evading punishment for so long through tricks and legal
treachery?
For almost two decades, Salmans life was a
suspended sentence; a long countdown to the
feared dnouement. This tortuous wait would
have been worthwhile for him, had he in the end
been acquitted by the Mumbai court. In addition, the egoistic, superstar endured the discomfort of cozying up to politicians who could
have influenced his cases, especially in Rajasthan. (One of them, coincidentally, managed to
bag a few roles in films as his mother and got
her daughter to sing a few songs in his home
productions.) Now that he has been sentenced
to five years in jail, Salman will be wondering if
the delay only prolonged his agony.
All of it is well deserved. A few days ago, when
Salmans driver appeared in the court and
claimed that he was responsible for the Mumbai
accident, nobody missed the joke. Soon, a black
buck will write an application to the Jodhpur
Court saying it was not killed by Salman but had
committed suicide, went the joke on Twitter,
sarcastically pointing at Salmans efforts to deny

an irrefutable truth. For the deplorable effort of
pinning the blame on an innocent driver alone
(albeit with his consent), Salman deserves every
bit of the pain he has endured and the punishment he will serve.
The Bhai's troubles, however, are far from over.
Salman is the main accused in three cases of
poaching protected animals in Jodhpur, in
another related case he is accused of using firearms without a valid licence. The lower courts
have already found him guilty in two cases of
poaching. In the first he was sentenced to a year
in jail, primarily because it was his first offence.
In the second he was sentenced to five years in

jail by virtue of being a repeat offender. His appeal against these verdicts is pending.
In the two remaining cases, the verdict could
be announced any time and, if found guilty, the
punishment could be extremely severe.
The worst-case scenario for Salman could be
this: he spent the last 15 years trying to avoid
punishment. He could be spending the next
decade serving sentences for his crimes.
That would make for an agonising Silver Jubilee
for the superstar.
How bhai betrayed his die-hard
fans with hit-and-run case

Rucha Joshi, May 7, 2015
hen Maine Pyar Kiya came out, I

watched it three times and the repeat
viewings was basically for the shots
of Salman Khan's shirtless chest. If Hum Saath
Saath Hain comes on TV, I still get a little wobbly around the knees at his expression when he
and Sonali Bendre are left alone in his bedroom
by the family. My favourite party story is the
one in which I tell people how I went in for a
head massage at a Bandra salon and realised
Salman Khan was in a corner, getting a manipedi. And let's not even get into how many
times I've watched Dabangg.
So it shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone that

I'm one of those who didn't think Salman Khan
should be given too hard a time over the hitand-run case when it happened. Not because
I'm saying it's ok to run people over -- it isn't -but because this is the sort of thing with which
the privileged get away. Salman Khan isn't the
only person to have indulged in drunk driving,
but ask any of his fans and we'll all tell you the
obvious: he made a mistake and that's bad and
he should be punished, but it isn't homicide.
Khan was one of Bollywood's last proper celebrities. He's mellowed into a more bland guy
now, like most stars in Bollywood, but he's still
the most entertaining hero we've got. He'll do
jhatkas instead of answering questions at a
press con. His Twitter feed is a miracle of absurdist proportions. You simply can't deny the
fact that Khan is more likely to put a smile on
your face with his antics(Editor's note: so long
as they don't involve a car, a pavement, a few
homeless people and/or Khan's driver).
In the past, Khan has done so much to keep fans
happy. He dated the most beautiful women and
married none of them; he partied, threw tantrums, and was impossibly charming in person. He was a gossipmonger's delight, which is
precisely what a celebrity is supposed to be. The
kind of stories you heard about Khan are only
comparable to the sort that circulated about
Amitabh Bachchan. Only in Bachchan's case,
it doesn't seem entirely likely that he built an
underground tunnel between his two houses.
When it comes to Khan, no outlandish story is
outlandish enough.
Some say he's a fitness junkie, others say his
sculpted abs in recent films are all visual effects.
On the one hand, there were stories of him
smashing a bottle on a girlfriend's head (she
denied this eventually) and on the other, there
were accounts of his astonishing generosity
towards those considered menial. Rather than a
split personality, Salman Khan was sort of like a
medieval monarch - he did whatever he wanted
and he liked feeling powerful, which possibly
explains his acts of generosity in a less than
generous light.
Twelve years of this hit-and-run case, however,
have taken a toll on my fandom. Maybe it didn't
quite register what "hit and run" meant initially,
but the time that's taken has really been a brutal
reality check. As the case lingered, it became
impossible to ignore the fact that Khan was lying. From the party boy, he turned into the Being Human guy -- as though setting up a charity means he can't run over homeless people.
And then when Khan claimed that he had not
been the one driving the car, it was the ultimate
betrayal. Over the last 12 years, everything that

Khan has done to defuse this case against him
-- from intimidating people, hobnobbing with
powerful politicians and "losing" files -- has
been increasingly ugly and shameless.
I think a lot of us fans just stand by him because
to accept he's not worthy of our adoration also
means admitting that we fell for his grand con.
We believed the stories about his good heart.
We got distracted by his pelvic thrusts and his
shy smiles.
Can you really say that you're a fan of a man
who has run people over, tried to pervert the
system with intimidation as well as perjury? I
find that I can't. I can and will watch his films,
all the same. In fact, I'll probably have a 'Salmanathon' tonight, after the verdict and sen-
tence are announced. A fan needs something

to dismiss the horrible reality that their hero is
actually not just human, but also the villain of
this piece. And as far as dismissing reality goes,
there's nothing that does that as efficiently as
bad Bollywood.
Cheer for his tacky filmography. Hope like
hell that he gets out of jail and is able to finish
shooting Bajrangi Bhaijaan. Buy first-day-firstshow tickets of Prem Ratan Dhan Payo. Love
the roles he plays, by all means. But my fellow
Salman fans, don't delude yourself into believing Bhai's innocent.
Rucha Joshi is a Salman Khan fan. She is going
to be looking for a new bio line now that Khan
has been found guilty.
Manage kar dena culture wont work always:
Salman verdict a wake up call for our elites

Sandip Roy May 7, 2015
n the eyes of the law it should not matter if

Mother Teresa was behind a hit-and-run or
Dawood Ibrahim. It should not matter that
one is a winner of the Nobel Peace Prize and the
other is a wanted terrorist and don. In the eyes
of the law the only narrow question is whether
they are guilty of a hit-and-run. The character of
the driver is moot.
the victims of the hit-and-run whose only crime

was to be sleeping in the way of his car. Thats
a transference of guilt even the most outlandish Bollywood script would not countenance.
But that is exactly what the singer Abhijeet did
when he tweeted "kutta rd pe soyega, kutte ki
maut marega, roads garib ke baap nahin hai
I ws homles a yr nve slept on road. As if the
poor choose to sleep on the street for the marine breeze when they could easily crash on the
couch of some kindly middle-class friend.
Bollywood produces film after film cheering
the poor but honest boy who eventually wins
against the filthy rich don, some of them probably written by Salman Khans own father. It is
astonishing how quickly and callously, however,
it tosses its own script out of the window when
one of its own stars is in trouble.
No one is questioning Salman Khans philanthropy. No one is debating whether Being Human proves his generosity and humanitarian
spirit. No one is arguing about whether he is a
beloved star in Bollywood or not. And no one is
contesting Parineeti Chopra when she rhapsodizes about the "beauty of a human being that
Salman Khan is".
Alia Bhatt probably came closest to understanding the difference between the crime Salman
Khan is found guilty of and the man he is when
she tweeted It hurts when your own are punished, even if they are in the wrong. We love you
and are standing by you.
If today a court had exonerated Salman Khan

of all charges and bought the story of the guilty
driver, many would have shaken their heads
and said thats how justice works in this country. The rich and the superstar can bend justice to their will and find someone to take the
blame. They can cozy up to powerful politicians,
they can ride out the process, delay it at will,
get judges transferred and ensure an acquittal.
But now that the law has actually proved it can
be blind, Salman Khans supporters like Pulkit
Samrat are tweeting Today I wish he wasnt a
superstar. Prejudice.
That is what friends and family are for to

stand by their own even if they are in the wrong.
Nobody is expecting the film fraternity to do a
Mother India act in real life and stab Salman
Khan.
In the universe Samrat lives in, the rich and

powerful are apparently routinely punished
because vindictive and jealous judges are prejudiced. In fact, if that was the case the Salman
Khan verdict would not be such big news. Its
landed like a bombshell because we are used
to the well-connected never having to face the
music because they have the fat cat lawyers, the
time and the money that the little guy just does
not have.
But that does not mean the blame should go
Remember what happened with Manu Sharma

who shot Jessica Lall in a bar in front of many

witnesses? Remember the twists and turns of
that case, the witnesses turning hostile, until
that final 'not guilty' verdict that spurred such
national outrage the case had to be revisited.
But Jessica Lall was different. She came from
a strata of a society which counted for something in our class-conscious society. Celebrities
demanded justice for her. They adopted the
case as one of their own. Pavement dwellers are
another matter. They are not people. They are
a problem human detritus in the way of a car.
As Farah Khan Ali tweeted:
"The govt should be responsible for housing ppl.
If no 1was sleeping on d road in any other country Salman wuld not have driven over anybody."
While Bollywood might care about Salman
Khan, those hysterical Twitter-tears are really a
result of self-pity as it realises that Sanjay Dutt
was not just an aberrant nightmare. Bollywood
is coming to grips with the fact that it is not
above the law, that the same law that applies to
a pavement dweller is also supposed to apply to
stars, that the system cannot always be manipulated just because you have the means to do it.
In India, which at its heart remains doggedly
feudal, laws and permits and licenses are always
meant for the little people, the plebians. Wealth,
power and prestige is measured by nonchalance
about rules and regulations whether its speed
limits, building permits, customs rules or liquor laws. The rich, put simply, can roll up their
windows and get away with murder. Impunity
is just a perk that comes with wealth and status.
Manage kar dena.
What the Bollywood elite cannot fathom is why

a court would choose to be so harsh on poor Salman when even the victims of the hit-and-run
are prepared to accept compensation and move
on. Compensation matters more than conviction, my health and work suffered, says Abdullah Rauf Shaikh who lost a leg in that accident.
If Salman is punished, I will not be benefited
in any way as neither my leg will heal nor my
problems would go away. Shaikh still watches
Salman Khan films.
A poor man like Shaikh is entirely entitled to be
more interested in compensation than punishment. But that does not change in any way what
Khan is accused of doing and the punishment
that comes with it. A murderer must face the legal system even if the victims family decides to
forgive him. If today there is an honour killing it
does not mean the state can shrug its shoulders
and ignore it just because both sides agree that
the victims deserved it.
But Indias elite think their power, connections and money can manage everything from
bootleg liquour to access to the VVIP lounge to
a court conviction. And Bollywod with its extra
patina of glamour is even more convinced about
its superpowers.
The court gave Salman Khan a wake up call.
Hopefully the rest of Indias elites also got a
bit of the same and understood that in the end
theres more to Being Human than a t-shirt. Being human should be that we are all equal in the
eyes of the law.
But Bhai is a good guy: Support for Salman Khan
a win for his PR but medias failure

Deepanjana Pal May 7, 2015
ll of you who thought Salman Khan was going to be found guilty in the 2002 hit and run
case, raise your hands. Let's hope someone is buying sessions judge DW Deshpande cupcakes for reaffirming our faith in the country's legal system, despite the fact that Khan's
12-year-old case isn't a glowing example of its efficiency.
Call it cynicism or resignation, but many of us were apprehensive that the court would not find
Khan guilty even though all the evidence and Khan's own changing testimonies points to his guilt.
But this is Salman Khan and he's too big to fail surely -- there's too much money riding on him and
he's too much of a star.
The strength of Khan's popularity was palpable in Mumbai this morning. Wander through social
media, and you'll find countless posts announcing prayers for Khan and declarations that he'll always be loved. An eye witness in the hit and run case said he hoped Khan wasn't found guilty. Even
the people who were under his car and the family of the man who died as a result of Khan's drunk
driving didn't want him to be punished.
There, in Sonakshi Sinha's tweet, lies the secret

of Khan's popularity the enduring belief that
for all his antics, Bhai is basically a good guy.
Regardless of whether this is true, the fact that
everyone knows of Khan's essential awesomeness is a spectacular PR success. If Khan had a
shaadi.com profile under a pseudonym, there
probably wouldnt be too many takers. He is in
his late 40s and has spent most of his 20s and
30s as a party animal. Even now, rumour has it
he can drink most young lads under the table.
From a legion of ex-girlfriends to rumours of
hitting and harassing women, Khans got it
all. He also has two criminal cases against his
name, has been found guilty of culpable homicide and faces a five-year jail term. On the plus
side, he has a sea-facing flat in Bandra, Mumbai.
Attach the name Salman Khan to this profile,
and all misgivings miraculously disappear.
From everyday folk to celebrities, a staggering
number of people appear to be heartbroken that
Khan has been found guilty for a crime that he
obviously committed. Why? Because he's a generous and good man, we're told.
Many have pointed to his philanthropy as proof
of his goodness. When Khans lawyers urged the
court to look at Khans charity work and reduce
the quantum of sentencing, it became clear
why Khans charitable side had emerged precisely around the time that these criminal cases
showed up.
Yet after all this, Khan remains a hero to many.
Some explain Khan's popularity by suggesting
the public sees hope in Khan and his ability to
bounce back despite setbacks. The fact that he
lives in Bandra, in an apartment, with his parents, gives Khan a middle-class air and makes
him seem relatable. That Khan can get on with
his life and work despite two criminal cases
seems to hold out a message hope for everyone
-- you too can rise above obstacles and misfortune. Playing down Khan's hit and run case becomes a way of forgiving yourself for your own
wrongdoings.
But all this spiel about Khan being the little people's hero is precisely what Khan would like us
to swallow. That we're ready to do so just shows

with painful clarity what a monstrous celebrity
culture we've created. Wed rather adore and
idolize the image that Khan has projected of
himself as the mild-mannered philanthropist
who cares about common people and is full of
empathy for the underprivileged.
Its a stupendous success for his PR campaign
and a shameful moment for mainstream media,
because the fact of the matter is, Khan wouldnt
be the hero that he is today if respected newspapers and television channels werent so eager to
report incidents like this. It cannot be a coincidence that there's been no investigation into
precisely what kind of charity the Being Human
Foundation does, other than sell ugly, overpriced t-shirts.
The real danger with celebrity culture is that it
makes both readers and journalists complacent.
With more and more channels, publications and
websites, everyones hungry for cheap content
and celebrities are the easiest source. Unlike
real cultural journalism, gossip and PR campaigns are easy, both to write and read. Film
supplies this more readily than literature, art
or theatre, particularly in India. Plus, celebrity
coverage gives the reader an illusion of knowing the celebrity, which is what makes it addictive.
Just look at all the fans who claim to know
Khan, for example. None of them have any idea
what hes actually like, but feel they known him
because of how often hes in the media, both
because of his charity and his films.
As for all the love and sympathy Khan is getting from the film industry, would any of them
show even half as much interest if Khan was
a has-been and wasnt churning out big hits?
According to reports, Bollwood has banked in
the range of Rs 200 crores on Khans upcoming projects. No wonder theyre going on and on
about Khans golden heart.
Perhaps Khan is full of empathy. Perhaps hes
a wonderful brother and son. Perhaps his heart
bleeds each time he sees a beggar and perhaps
he cuddles a teddy bear each night when he goes
to bed. None of this changes the fact that he is
guilty of killing a homeless man in a drunk haze,
trying to suppress evidence and lying in court.

He also has a past record of violent behaviour.
Worse, instead of accepting his guilt and attempting reform, Khan has tried to con both his
fans (successfully) and justice (unsuccessfully).
Would Bollywood, which is notorious for being
the stuff of escapist fantasies, have a character
like this as a hero in a film?
Either were so starved of role models that we
cant bear to dislodge Khan from his pedestal
or weve lost both our ethics and our capacity to
reason. Educated, upwardly mobile and urbane
people, who are meant to be more discerning
because of greater life experience and better
opportunities, are defending Khan with the
naivete that would conventionally be associated
with the illiterate. There are messages pouring
in, expressing dismay at Khan being sentenced

to five years imprisonment because hes a good
man. None of them appear to be concerned with
where Khans goodness had vanished when he
pinned the blame on his driver who had nothing to do with the hit and run. It doesnt appall
any of them that Khans behavior led to the loss
of life, presumably because a homeless man is
worth much less than Bollywood's Rs 100-crore
man.
Khans popularity and the support that has been
extended to him is perhaps the most damning
indictment of the society that weve created in
modern India. You've got to wonder about exactly what 'goodness' means to people who don't
think murder is a character flaw.
What if Salman killed one of them?

Bollywood hates the homeless, but wants their money
G Pramod Kumar May 8, 2015
he staple of traditional Bollywood is the

triumph of the underdog against the rich
and the powerful, but on Wednesday,
when it stood behind a drunken super rich man
to slam the underdog, what was on display was
its real character - completely rotten and immoral.
sleeping on d road in any other country Salman

wuld not have driven over anybody.It's like penalising a train driver because someone decided
to cross the tracks and got killed in the bargain.
Parliamentarian and veteran actor Hema Malini, one of the first to react on TV, said she felt
very sad about Salman. She even said that she
would pray for less punishment for him.
Every single person who tweeted from Bollywood, or reacted to the verdict, said more
or less the same thing, that they stood by Salman and felt sad for him. And none of them
bothered to think about the victim, a symbol of
widespread destitution that stare us in our faces
from every street corner. There was no sympathy for the person who died or those who were
inured.
The drunken man, superstar Salman Khan,

that most of the Bollywood bigwigs stood by
had blood on his hands - he killed a poor homeless man and injured four others by driving his
luxury car over them in 2002 while they were
sleeping on a city pavement. Thanks to an effete criminal justice system, he could drag the
case for 13 years and play some legal tricks, but
in the end, there was enough evidence for the
court to declare him guilty and send him to jail
for five years.
More than the judgement, what shocked the nation was the reaction of his lackeys and cronies
from the film industry. Singer Abhijeet called
the people who slept on the footpath dogs
and said roads dont belong to the dads of the
poor. He went on to ask the poor on the footpaths in Mumbai to go back and sleep in their
villages so that no vehicles will kill them.
Jewelry designer and DJ Aqeel's wife Farah
Khan Ali too betrayed similar disgust for the
poor and the homeless. She tweeted: The govt
should be responsible for housing ppl.If no 1was
And it also didnt matter to them that in the

courts eyes, it was a culpable homicide, which
according to the Indian Penal Code means this:
"Whoever causes death by doing an act with the
intention of causing death, or with the intention
of causing such bodily injury as is likely to cause
death, or with the knowledge that he is likely
by such act to cause death, commits the offence
of culpable homicide. In other words, Salman
knew that his action was likely to cause death.
The death of a poor, homeless man.
The man who died at the wheels of Salmans
car is among the millions of people (1.77 million according to the 2011 Census while NGOs
estimate a much higher number) who sleep in
the open in India. A large number of them are
in Mumbai - about 58,000, according to Census, and 11 lakh, according to a report by the
Supreme Court Commissioners who tracked the
implementation of interim orders of the apex
court on right to food in 2002. And they are
everywhere - on Sandhurst road, Tilak Bridge
in Dadar, Mahim beach, Church Gate and Parel,
with the highest number in Zone 1, followed by
Zone 2.
Nobody wants them because the general perCopyright 2012 Firstpost
ception is that they are beggars and criminals

although several studies have noted that many
of them contribute gainfully to the economy. An
affidavit by the Maharashtra government before the Supreme Court (SC) reflects this public
perception and apathy. It said that homeless in
Mumbai are beggars and should be locked up in
the states beggar homes. The SC in its directive
had stated that the homeless had to provided
with shelters. However, successive governments
have chosen to ignore the directive. Even the
new chief minister Devendra Fadnavis is silent
on the welfare of the homeless although he
could tap into the resources under the National
Urban Livelihoods Mission.
Besides the monstrous wheels of rich and famous people like Salman, the people on the
streets are also vulnerable to State oppression.
They are undefined and hence benefit from
none of the welfare schemes of the State and are
criminalised because, according to a 2007 study
by Harsh Mander (Living Rough - Surviving
City Streets, Centre for Equity Studies) authorities are distrustful of homeless people as
parasitical, lazy, unhygienic, illegal and largely
criminal. Homeless people return the compliment by regarding the government as implacably uncaring, hostile, corrupt and neglectful.
The situation is similar across the country. In
2002 winter, police had recovered 3040 corpses

from Delhis streets. And police routinely round
them up and send them to jails whenever they
think there is a need for preventive detention.
The pro-Salman tweets showed how much we
hate the urban homeless. We edit them out of
our sight and, if possible, will send them to hell
with or without realising that they are the most
marginalised among our fellow citizens - migrants, internally displaced, Dalits, landless
labourers, people with illnesses, drug-uses and
so on. By choosing to ignore them, the State
fails to acknowledge that right to shelter is a
universal human right, and denies them many
of their fundamental rights (Article 14, 15, 16,
19) and protection under directive principles of
state policy (Article 39, 42, 47, 51).
This sharp observation of the eighth report of
the SC Commissioners, headed by noted economist NC Saxena, summarises the pro-Salman
attitude: Homeless people on city streets are
invisible to public policy, though they are visible
daily to policy makers as they drive the same
city streets. This is exactly what the tweets by
Abhijeet and others like him reflected, although
a lot of the money they take home for their onscreen foolery come from these millions on the
streets.
Tu mera hero: Spare Salman Khan fans please,
we hero-worship Congress, BJP leaders too!

Piyasree Dasgupta May 8, 2015
id you hear a collective cry of anguish

ripple through the country as a judge
in Mumbai sentenced Salman Khan to
prison for five years?
Did you want to bang your head on your workdesk, as 'fans' swarmed around television reporters, offering to go to jail on behalf of 'bhai',
displaying that they are hardly more intelligent
than a broccoli?
That apart, there were ones who brought up

the fact that the incident occurred so long ago
and Khan is such a different man now that he
shouldn't be made to pay the price for what he
did in his youth. It's like saying you shouldn't
be nicknamed Little Mermaid now because you
wore flared-bottom denims while in college a
decade back.
It also does not account for the fact that the case
dragged on as long as it did because Khan's lawyers did their best to delay and procrastinate.
"Ab jaane bhi do," the country seems to be saying like an indulgent grandmother, getting the
back of a truant teen. Khan is a better man, he
has made up for the mishap by Being Human.
(In fact, he came up with a solution for people
with bad taste and shopping addiction minus
the moolah. He gave you the desi answer to LV
bag.)
Did you wonder if there should be a law making stupidity a punishable offence as Farah
Khan Ali and singer Abhijeet's tweets surfaced
on your timeline and you figured that hundreds
of people agreed with them? Did you suddenly
feel that you'd rather be in Jurassic Park than in
this country, as all the pyaar, ishq, mohabbat,
punched you on your face?
If you did, you probably belong to my tribe. And
you need to calm down and not overreact.
So what are the common arguments defending
Khan and expressing horror at the fact that he,
of all people, should go to jail? Much has been
said about how great a human being Salman
Khan is. That belief is being considered fact and
being widely cited by those demanding Khan be
sent right back to the sets of Bajraangi Bhaijaan,
so that he can break a few more bones. In a film,
of course.
And finally, he never intended to kill that man.

Poor thing, he just drank a little more than usual. And instead of us lesser mortals who end up
hugging a toilet seat all night, he just ran over
a man. Surely, he shouldn't be spotted chakki
peesing, for that one drunken escapade?
But wait, where have you heard these arguments before? Was it in the last general election? Was in it every election you have seen in
this country? Oh, yes!
Let's look at the governments in this country.
The one we have now has been formed by a
party, which among other things, is accused at
worst of complicity in riots or at best doing precious little to contain them. According to official
records, the 2002 Gujarat riots killed 1,000
people at least. Now don't charge at me denying
the BJP's involvement in the riots. Maya Kodnani, a BJP MLA and minister has been convicted
in the case. Kodnani was a free woman for 11
years, till she was convicted in 2013, alongside
several others. India, unanimously voted for the
party, making it a single majority party in a long

time in India's history. It's as if we yawned, 'raat
gayi, baat gayi' and decided to move on.
What was the government we had for for a
decade before this? It was led by a party, which
is believed to have let loose a riot that killed
nearly 2,800 people. It is widely believed that it
was enraged Congress supporters who ran amok
killing Sikhs, after Indira Gandhi was assassinated by her Sikh bodyguards. No Congress
minister has yet been jailed in those riots. Some
have handily won re-election despite being accused of being heavily involved in the riots. It's
been more than 30 years since the massacre
took place. Yet, we voted the party to power to
head the country, several times in the following
years. We know how to move on.
So, yes, we are a country which doesn't hold
grudges for too long. As long as one of us was
not in the receiving end of any form of violence.
And as is the norm in any civilised society, the
ratio of people who have faced violence will
always be a sliver compared to the ones who
haven't. Shock dissipates in India faster that the

froth on our beer does.
By those standards, no wonder people think
Salman Khan is only as evil as Tom in Tom and
Jerry. And as forgivable as Hulk.
Add to that, how much we love our heroes. Or
mostly importantly, how compelled we feel to
have someone to moon and swoon over, to give
a human face to a great warrior-savior, mostly
male, macho and glib talking. From our political
'heroes', who promise to ferry us from bad times
to good, to our screen 'heroes' who show us how
to save a woman, fight corruption and beat up
baddies, we just have the most overblown role
supermodels imaginable. We show our faith
in them with our votes, or with our money on
opening weekend.
So how different are Salman Khan's fans from
a huge majority of Indians? In reality much of
India lives in the same glasshouse as Salman
Khan's irate fans. They just have different Salman Khans on their pedestals.
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Table of contents

Hit-and run case: The charges and the verdict

Five years in jail: Salman Khan previously described prison as hell

Hit-and-run case: Salman Khan sentenced for 5 years, to be taken into

Reactions to Salmans sentencing

Salman Khans bail justified or unusual? Lawyers divided over Bombay HC

Meherbani, Shukriya: Salman thanks fans for their support, blessings

Sending Salman to jail will not heal my leg: Victim of hit-and-run

Farahs gems: Jewelry designer says people shouldnt sleep on roads

Shares of Eros, Mandhana tank as Salman Khan gets 5 years in jail

Out of love for bhaijaan, Salman Khan-themed restaurant in Mumbai shuts

What does the ruling mean for Brand Salman and

Copyright 2012 Firstpost

The Firstpost Verdict

Friends of Salman Khan, do us a favour and stop tweeting

Salman Khans punishment is richly deserved

How bhai betrayed his die-hard fans with hit-and-run case

Tu mera hero: Spare Salman Khan fans please, we hero-worship Congress,

Copyright 2012 Firstpost

Hit-and run case: The charges and

Copyright 2012 Firstpost

Bombay HC suspends Salman

umbai: Salman Khan will not have

"This is not a case where I should keep him

loud cheers from delirious fans.

and fine of Rs 500. All sentences will run concurrently.

Copyright 2012 Firstpost

Why did Salman Khans trial take so long?

Because thats how law works in India

lose to 13 years have passed since FIR

Khan was alleged to have been driving the car

Khan even have a plausible defence?

evidence in the final trial (unsuccessfully, since

information system run by the The Maharashtra

The primary reason here, for me at least, was

The real reason for this strange practice is the

Copyright 2012 Firstpost

From 2002 to 2015: A timeline of events

in the Salman Khan hit-and-run case

Copyright 2012 Firstpost

Copyright 2012 Firstpost

Copyright 2012 Firstpost

Copyright 2012 Firstpost

Copyright 2012 Firstpost

Copyright 2012 Firstpost

Copyright 2012 Firstpost

Copyright 2012 Firstpost

A look at all the charges slapped on

Copyright 2012 Firstpost

Five years in jail: Salman Khan

previously described prison as hell

Copyright 2012 Firstpost

Copyright 2012 Firstpost

Hit-and-run case: Salman Khan sentenced

ollywood superstar Salman Khan was

court, where Salman's family including brothers

Khan will have to take his bail plea to the High

The popular actor was tried afresh under

A tight security blanket was thrown around the

Salman Khan sentenced to five years

in jail: The witnesses that mattered

hen a sessions court found Salman

he was speeding just before the accident took