MUMBAI, 3 August 2007 — Actor Sanjay Dutt, sentenced to six years in jail for possession of weapons, received yet another setback yesterday when TADA Court Judge P.D. Kode rejected his plea in which he had prayed that he be allowed to stay in the Arthur Road jail.
Following the dismissal of Dutt’s plea, he is to be moved to Yerawada jail near Pune where Mahatma Gandhi was incarcerated during British rule.
In his petition, Sanjay said that he wanted to stay in Mumbai as he would be close to his family and relatives and also that he would have easy access to his lawyers who will be filing appeal in the Supreme Court against his sentence.
Special Public Prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam objected to Dutt’s contention and argued that the reasons were not convincing as several other blast convicts were lodged in Nashik, Kolhapur, Ratnagiri and other prisons in Maharashtra.
The state prison authorities also submitted a report in the court saying it was not safe to keep Dutt in the Arthur Road prison for security reasons.
The report further stated that the Mumbai jail was only meant to keep under trial prisoners, and added that other blast convicts had been shifted to other jails in the state.
Dutt was on Tuesday jailed for six years for weapons possession and was sent to Mumbai’s Arthur Road jail, which was built to house 800 inmates but is now believed to hold nearly 3,000.
“Sanjay Dutt will be moved out of the Arthur Road jail to Yerawada jail near Pune, due to lack of space and security concerns,” a senior jail authority said on condition of anonymity.
Yerawada jail is a high-security prison complex southeast of the Maharashtra state capital Mumbai.
Dutt will be housed in the same jail where the Indian independence icon Gandhi spent several years during India’s freedom struggle from British colonial rule.
The actor recently played the role of a wisecracking mobster in the hugely popular movie “Carry on Munnabhai” in which he meets Gandhi’s ghost.
Dutt is receiving no special treatment in jail, officials say.
