Salman Khan, one of India's most famous actors and the prime suspect in the 1998 blackbuck poaching case, has apologised for "mistakenly" submitting a false affidavit, saying he had lost his gun licence during the court season in 2003. He also lodged a police complaint (FIR) about it in a Mumbai police station.
However, the court later found out that Salman's gun licence was not lost – he had in fact used it to applied for a renewal. As a result, the public prosecutor demanded a new case should be filed against Salman for misleading the court.
He was arrested in 2018 after a local court in India’s Rajasthan state sentenced him to jail for five years for killing two blackbucks, but he was released on bail two days later before appealing the sentence.
On Tuesday, Salman appeared before a judge in Jodhpur in Rajasthan state via a video link for his appeal hearing.
His lawyer Hastimal Saraswat told the court that the false affidavit was mistakenly submitted to the court on August 8, 2003, for which the actor should be forgiven.
“The affidavit was mistakenly given on August 8, 2003, as Salman had forgotten that his licence was given for renewal because he was too busy. Therefore, he mentioned that the licence had gone missing in the court," Saraswat said.
The final verdict will be announced on Thursday.