Bollywood's Salman Khan gets bail : Netglimse.com News

Bollywood's Salman Khan gets bail

Bollywood star Salman Khan has ultimately been freed on bail by an Indian court on August 31, Friday, almost a week after he was arrested and jailed for shooting endangered gazelles during hunting trips nearly a decade ago.

It was not immediately clear if Salman Khan would walk out of prison on Friday pending the completion of legal formalities, his lawyers said. The court also ordered the actor to deposit a personal bond of 100,000 rupees ($2,500).

Salman Khan, 41, was arrested on Saturday, a day after a lower court rejected his appeal against a 2006 conviction for killing the endangered animals in the western desert state of Rajasthan in 1998. He has been sentenced to a five-year term, a sentence which he is appealing at the Rajasthan High Court.

"We will surely make our efforts to expedite the process," the actor's lawyer Dipesh Mehta told reporters. "We are hoping to do it as fast as we can, we'll try to take him home tonight, let's cross our fingers."

Salman Khan allegedly slit the throat of a chinkara gazelle he shot and then gave it to chefs to cook at his deluxe hotel in the western desert state. The animals are protected under Indian wildlife law.

Some conservation activists said Khan's celebrity status may have helped his case for bail.

"It's a serious crime but obviously the high court sees some merit in giving him bail," said Belinda Wright, director of the Wildlife Protection Society of India.

"If he had been a poor, peasant-poacher and not so high-profile, I don't believe he would have been granted bail."

Renowned for his bad-boy image and romantic liaisons with several Bollywood leading ladies, Salman Khan has several other cases hanging over him.

He was convicted in 2006 for killing protected blackbuck antelopes during hunting trips to Rajasthan and given a one-year jail sentence.

He was granted bail and has appealed against that conviction. He has also been charged with other counts of killing wildlife and of breaking gun laws.

Khan is also facing trial over the death of a man sleeping on a pavement in Mumbai in 2002. Salman Khan is suspected of drunk-driving. The actor has denied being at the wheel.

Khan, also known for his slapstick comedy, stars in three movies that are under production costing in total about 1 billion rupees ($24 million), industry analysts say.