Salman Khan was accused of poaching blackbucks in a village in Rajasthan in 1998 while filming Sooraj Barjatya’s Hum Saath-Saath Hain with Saif Ali Khan, Tabu and Sonali Bendre

Salman Khan has been fulfilling his work commitments under high security after death threats from jailed gangster Lawrence Bishnoi. Amid this, the megastar’s old interview, where he recalled a run-in with ‘petrified’ Blackbuck has surfaced on social media.

The actor was accused of poaching blackbucks in a village in Rajasthan in 1998 while filming Sooraj Barjatya’s Hum Saath-Saath Hain with Saif Ali Khan, Tabu and Sonali Bendre.

In 2009, Salman Khan spoke about the incident and said he only fed the blackbuck. “I think this is where it has come from. One day after pack-up, we would driving by, all of us, there was Saif, there was Tabu, there was Neelam, there was Amrita, there was Sonali, and we saw a deer fawn stuck in a bush,” Salman told NDTV.

“The whole herd was there, so I stopped the car and he was like petrified. We took him out from there and gave him some water. He was like scared. After a while, he ate mast biscuit-wiscuit khaya, and he want away. We packed up early that day. We all were going together. I think from there, this whole thing came,” the Tiger 3 star added.

While Saif Ali Khan, Sonali Bendre, Tabu and Neelam Kothari were acquitted, Salman Khan was punished. In this legal case of 26 years, Salman was arrested, released on bail, acquitted, convicted and released on bail again.

Recently, veteran writer and actor’s father Salim Khan defended his son and said that Salman had not killed the animal and he was not even present during the poaching incident.

“Aur woh mujhse jhooth nahi bolega. Usko nahi hain shaukh jaanwar maarne ka. Jaanwaro se mohabbat karta hai woh. (He won’t lie to me. Salman doesn’t have a liking of hunting animals. He loves them),” said Salim.