Salman: An 'ordinary' prisoner

New Delhi: He is controversy’s favourite child.

Salman Khan heads the Bollywood brat pack thanks to his characteristic devil-may-care attitude, frequent run-ins with the media, infamous brushes with the law and finally and now a jail term.

On Monday, when Salman was sentenced to a five-year jail term by a Jodhpur court for shooting a chinkara in 1998, he was at his brattish best.

Dressed in a white cotton designer shirt with the top buttons characteristically undone and a stone-washed blue jeans, a dreary-eyed Salman walked out of the court and was taken to the jail in a police Gypsy.

Salman is being lodged in the barrack No 1 of Jodhpur Central jail. His fellow inmates in the high-security prison include some of the most dreaded terrorists from Jammu and Kashmir.

Jodhpur central prison was built in 1874 and is spread over 46 acres. Apart from the Pakistani militants, terrorists from Lebanon, Iran and Afghanistan, who were arrested for carrying out cross-border terror activities, are also lodged there.

Hurriyat leaders Yasin Malik, Maulvi Abbas Ansari and Prof Abdul Ghani Bhatt were also lodged here a few years ago.

The Jail Superintendent Mithulal Chauhan confessed that he was a fan of the star, but hastened to add that the actor is being treated like any other prisoner.

Well, so it seems. Salman's celeb status might not fetch him the adulation and fan frenzy he’s so used to inside the jail.

Just like the other inmates, he is being housed in a 10X10 ft cell with an attached toilet.

Also there are no fancy, exotic delicacies for Bollywood’s favourite brat.

He is being served the usual jail food – two chapattis with a bowl of dal.

A bedsheet and a blanket, a pillow and cushions are all he is getting inside the cell.

And while his cell does not have a television, Salman will be entitled to newspapers and magazines.

Two guards will be placed on a 24-hour duty outside his cell and will have convicts found guilty of murder as his neighbours.

Now whether he'll find a few fans in his illustrious co-inmates, is anyone’s guess!