Pakistan’s former interior minister says Salman Khan has been made an 'escape goat'

 

Pakistan’s former Interior Minister Rehman Malik tweeted on Friday that “Salman Khan had been made an escape goat to demonstrate the so-called rule of law in India.”

In a series of tweets, the former interior minister was critical of India’s failure to act against Hindu nationalist organisation Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) over the atrocities they were committing against minorities. “You sentenced Salman Khan for hunting deer where RSS is hunting Muslim and Christians in India,” Malik tweeted.

On Thursday, Bollywood actor Salman Khan was sentenced to five years prison by a court in Jodhpur for killing endangered wildlife nearly two decades ago while working on the film Hum Saath Saath Hain.

Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Khawaja Asif has also been critical of the jail term.

"Salman Khan has been sentenced because he's a minority," the foreign minister said while speaking to Hamid Mir, anchor of Geo News programme Capital Talk.

To sentence him in a case that is twenty years old goes on to show that lives of those who are Muslims, 'untouchables' or Christians are not valued in India, he said.

Asif added, "Maybe if he belonged to the religion of the ruling party of India he would not have been given such a harsh sentence and the court might have been lenient with him."