Salman, Saif fail to appear in court

Bollywood stars Salman Khan, Saif Ali Khan, Tabu, Neelam and Sonali Bendre Monday failed to appear in a court here that is hearing a case related to the alleged poaching of two endangered blackbuck deer by them in 1998.

Hastimal Saraswat, counsel for the film stars, submitted to the court applications for their being unable to be present.

"While Salman, Saif and Tabu are busy with film shoots, Neelam and Sonali were not able to attend the hearing as they are sick," Saraswat told IANS.

Only one of the seven accused - Dushyant Singh - was present.

Judicial Magistrate Dalpat Singh Rajpurohit adjourned the case till Feb 27 and asked all the accused to appear before him then for hearing the charges.

The five Bollyood stars and two others have been accused of poaching two blackbucks at Kankani near Jodhpur in the intervening night of Oct 1 and 2, 1998.

On Friday, Salman was convicted by another court here for killing a chinkara, an endangered antelope. He was sentenced to a year in prison and fined Rs.5,000, but the sentence was suspended for a month so that he could file an appeal.

During the filming in Rajasthan of the Bollywood hit "Hum Saath Saath Hain", a case was lodged by the state forest department against Salman following allegations that he and the others had killed two blackbucks at Kakani in October 1998.

The state police filed formal charges against Salman and others in 2000.