JODHPUR, India: An Indian court on Wednesday acquitted Bollywood superstar Salman Khan of using unlicensed firearms to kill protected wildlife almost two decades ago.
Khan, 51, has now been acquitted in three out of four cases filed against him for hunting rare black bucks, a native species of antelope, while shooting a film in the northwestern state of Rajasthan in 1998.
Sporting dark sunglasses, Khan was in court to hear the verdict as hundreds of police deployed outside tried to keep the crowds of fans under control.
“He was charged under two sections of the Arms Act and he has been cleared in both,” Hastimal Saraswat, a defense lawyer, told reporters outside the court in Jodhpur city.
“He was acquitted due to lack of conclusive evidence.”
While pronouncing the acquittal, magistrate Dalpat Singh Rajpurohit said the prosecution could not prove that Khan possessed and used fire arms with expired license.
Prosecution counsel B. S. Bhati said they would appeal the verdict after studying the 102-page order. The actor still faces a fourth case on charges of poaching black bucks.
Khan, known for playing a tough guy in Hindi films, had accused the state forest department of framing him in the case.
Shortly after Wednesday’s verdict, Khan thanked his fans for their “support and good wishes” on Twitter where he has 21.1 million followers.
The actor is one of the Indian movie industry’s biggest draws and has starred in more than 100 films and television shows.
Last year his movie “Sultan,” in which he played an aging wrestler, smashed Bollywood’s box office records.
But Khan is no stranger to controversy and in 2015 he was cleared in another long-running case of killing a homeless man in a hit-and-run crash.
That decision is now being challenged in the Supreme Court.
Indian courts can often take years — and sometimes decades — to pronounce verdicts.
Bollywood’s Salman Khan cleared in weapons case
Bollywood’s Salman Khan cleared in weapons case
Fans bid farewell to Japan’s only pandas
TOKYO: Panda lovers in Tokyo said goodbye on Sunday to a hugely popular pair of the bears that are set to return to China, leaving Japan without the beloved animals for the first time in half a century.
Loaned out as part of China’s “panda diplomacy” program, the distinctive black-and-white animals have symbolized friendship between Beijing and Tokyo since the normalization of diplomatic ties in 1972.
Some visitors at Ueno Zoological Gardens were left teary-eyed as they watched Japan’s only two pandas Lei Lei and Xiao Xiao munch on bamboo.
The animals are expected to leave for China on Tuesday following a souring of relations between Asia’s two largest economies.
“I feel like seeing pandas can help create a connection with China too, so in that sense I really would like pandas to come back to Japan again,” said Gen Takahashi, 39, a Tokyo resident who visited the zoo with his wife and their two-year-old daughter.
“Kids love pandas as well, so if we could see them with our own eyes in Japan, I’d definitely want to go.”
The pandas’ abrupt return was announced last month after Japan’s conservative premier Sanae Takaichi hinted Tokyo could intervene militarily in the event of any attack on Taiwan.
Her comment provoked the ire of Beijing, which regards the island as its own territory.
The 4,400 lucky winners of an online lottery took turns viewing the four-year-old twins at Ueno zoo while others gathered nearby, many sporting panda-themed shirts, bags and dolls to celebrate the moment.
Mayuko Sumida traveled several hours from the central Aichi region in the hope of seeing them despite not winning the lottery.
“Even though it’s so big, its movements are really funny-sometimes it even acts kind of like a person,” she said, adding that she was “totally hooked.”
“Japan’s going to be left with zero pandas. It feels kind of sad,” she said.
Their departure might not be politically motivated, but if pandas return to Japan in the future it would symbolize warming relations, said Masaki Ienaga, a professor at Tokyo Woman’s Christian University and expert in East Asian international relations.
“In the future...if there are intentions of improving bilateral ties on both sides, it’s possible that (the return of) pandas will be on the table,” he told AFP.
