Salman has not been arrested, says Salim Khan

FATHER’S DILEMA: Salim Khan said it was tough time for him to see his son go to jail.

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New Delhi: Bollywood actor Salman Khan’s father Salim Khan, in reaction to his son being sent to the Jodhpur Central Jail on Saturday, said it’s a tough time for the family.

“One cannot get used to things like these even though they happen at regular intervals. Since we can’t do anything, we have to learn to live with them,” Salim Khan said.

The actor’s father however denied media reports that Salman failed to turn up in court because he missed a flight from Hyderabad and clarified that Salman did not turn up at the court because there were no instructions.

“Salman is paying for his celebrity status. He was never absconding. He has surrendered. He has not been arrested,” Salim Khan said.

Salman who reached Jodhpur, a day after the local court rejected his appeal against five-year jail term in the Chinkara poaching case, is prisoner number 343 at the Jodhpur Central jail.

The actor was arrested on arriving at the airport, and will be in a separate barrack since he's not a hardcore criminal.

The Jodhpur jail superintendent told CNN-IBN that Salman Khan would be treated as any other convict.

“The convict would be allowed to meet people, if he is not accused under any other law,” says Otaram, Superintendent, Jodhpur Central Jail.

Sources say that Salman will be sticking to a strict routine which includes breakfast at 7000 hrs (IST), comprising of 60 gm of chana (gram), 20 gm of gur (jaggery) and tea. Lunch will be served at 1100 hrs (IST) where he will get four to five chappatis and dal. For dinner that will be served at 1900 hrs (IST), prisoners get four to five chappatis and 200 grams of vegetables.

Meanwhile, the legal options that are available for Salman are:

• Salman will have to approach the Rajasthan High Court for relief.

• He will have to spend some time in jail until his legal team manages to approach the Rajasthan High Court for bail.
• Salman's lawyer, Dipesh Mehta, is planning to move the Rajasthan High Court by way of a criminal revision application against the sessions court order.
• The bail application can be heard only on Monday as Sunday is a court holiday. Tuesday is also a holiday on account of Rakshabandhan so it may be a few days before the matter is actually heard.

Salman has been convicted of poaching a chinkara, an endangered deer species, in the Ghoda farm near Jodhpur on the intervening night of September 28, 1998 while filming for Sooraj Barjatiya's blockbuster Hum Saath Saath Hain.

The chinkara case is just two of the four cases that were filed against him after he spent three days on a hunting expedition with friends in the forests around Jodhpur during that time. He is alleged to have killed two chinkaras and two blackbucks over three days.