Wave of sympathy
Jail Superintendent Vikram Singh said no special arrangements have been made for Khan who is now Prisoner 106 and was served a dinner of lentils and cabbage like other inmates on his first night. "He has a simple wooden bed, a rug and a cooler in his cell," Singh told reporters.Also Read- Indian court jails Salman Khan for five years for killing antelopes
Khan has accused Rajasthan's forest department of trying to frame him. His lawyers claim the black bucks died of natural causes such as overeating, claiming there was no evidence the animals were shot. Four other Bollywood stars -- Saif Ali Khan, Sonali Bendre, Tabu and Neelam Kothari -- who were also accused in the case were acquitted for lack of evidence. "The prosecution has proved beyond doubt the case of hunting two black bucks against Salman but the case against the other accused does not prove beyond doubt," the trial court judge said in his judgment. Film industry analysts say Khan has nearly $90 million riding on him with at least three big projects in the pipeline. The case, which has dogged Khan for 20 years, has seen him held in custody three times before. In 1998, Khan spent a week in prison after being accused of using unlicensed arms to shoot the black bucks. Khan was also found guilty of killing gazelles on the same trip and served very brief stints in jail in 2006 and 2007, but was later acquitted on appeal. The actor affectionately called “bhai,” or "brother" in Hindi, enjoys a cult-like status with the majority of his devotees young men who envy Khan's glamorous lifestyle. The latest verdict has triggered a wave of sympathy for the "bad boy" of Hindi cinema whose life has been dogged by controversies. Khan, who has had a string of glamorous relationships but never married, was cleared in 2015 of killing a homeless man in a hit-and-run accident. That decision is now being challenged in the Supreme Court. He was also accused of assaulting a former Miss World and provoked a firestorm in 2016 by saying his workout schedule for a film left him feeling "like a raped woman.” "Tough times don't last, tough people do, waiting for tiger to be back," tweeted actor Maniesh Paul, referring to Khan's most recent blockbuster "Tiger Zinda Hai" (Tiger is Alive) which has earned more than $85 million worldwide. Other Bollywood figures have also rallied around the actor, voicing support and decrying the harsh sentence.