NEW DELHI: Pakistan Foreign Minister Khawaja Asif on Thursday said that Bollywood actor Salman Khan was jailed in the 1998 blackbuck poaching case because he belongs to the minority community.

"Salman Khan was subjected to discrimination because he comes from the minority community," Asif said in Geo News's programme Capital Talk.

"Had he (Salman) 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," Geo News quoted Asif as saying.

Salman was on Thursday found guilty of killing the blackbucks, from the antelope family, in Kankani village near Jodhpur on the night of October 1, 1998 during the shooting of the film "Hum Saath Saath Hain"

The court also imposed a small fine of Rs 10,000 on Salman.

The prosecution alleged that Salman and other Bollywood stars Saif Ali Khan, Tabu, Sonali Bendre and Neelam went hunting on the October 1-2 in 1998 outside a forest reserve near Kankani village in Jodhpur while shooting for "Hum Saath Saath Hain" in 1998.

The four co-stars and a local, Dushyant Singh, were all acquitted.