PUNE, India, 4 August 2007 — Actor Sanjay Dutt’s health is a cause of concern for Yerawada Jail authorities. Doctors who examined Dutt yesterday afternoon said the actor’s blood pressure is alarmingly high.
A team of cardiologists from Sassoon General Hospital is to examine Dutt in prison this morning. If required, he will undergo a sonogram test in hospital to check the state of his heart.
“We will try to bring his blood pressure to normal through medication, and if that does not work, then there is no alternative but to put him under treatment in hospital and carry out extensive checks,” said a doctor at the hospital who did not want to be identified.
Earlier this week, Dutt was sentenced by a special court to six years in prison for illegal possession of weapons in 1993.
Meanwhile, Congress party stalwarts met party President Sonia Gandhi yesterday to discuss the imprisonment of the actor. Priya Dutt, a Congress MP and sister of Dutt, flew to New Delhi from Mumbai to meet with Sonia. Home Minister Shivraj Patil and Minister of State for Home Jaiprakash Jaiswal also met with Sonia.
“My family and friends are exploring all ways and means to get relief for Sanjay. We are also exploring the best legal methods that are available for us to get relief for him,” said Priya.
Congress leaders in Mumbai and Delhi have said that the party should stand solidly behind the Dutt family, which is known for promoting secularism and national integration.
Minister for Science and Technology Kapil Sibal, a vocal Dutt supporter, refused to comment on the court verdict and said that there were no differences within Congress over extending support to the family.
Dutt is serving the first week of his jail term in a cramped cell in the high security prison, a jail official said yesterday. He has been housed in an oval-shaped cell that has its own toilet for use by a single prisoner, the official said. “He has been put in this cell for security reasons.” Other prisoners use communal toilets that stink and are worm-infested. However, the official, who asked not be named because he was not authorized to speak to the media, denied Dutt had been given a separate toilet due to his celebrity status, or that any special concessions were being made to the actor.
The popular actor wears a prison uniform: a white shirt, loose trousers and a cap. His individual cell allows the actor to sleep in an extra hour.
“Prisoners must get up by 5 a.m. to stand in queues for the toilet, these are very long. They have to be ready at 7 a.m. for breakfast,” said a jail official who cannot be named.
Dutt has been given a prison manual listing jail rules. Immediately after breakfast, prisoners work until 6 p.m. with two breaks — once for lunch and again for a rest period.
Dinner is served by 7 p.m. after which it’s lights out by 8 p.m.
Breakfast usually consists of poha (convenience food made from rice pressed into flakes) or potatoes with tea. Food is cooked by prisoners. Dinner and lunch are usually rice, flat Indian bread and vegetables, with chicken served only over the weekend.
Dutt could work in the laundry, bakery, printing press, carpentry shop or do other tasks. “Normally we ask for the preferences of prisoners and try to know their aptitude before assigning them daily work,” the Press Trust of India quoted an unnamed jail source as saying.
Yerawada is one of the largest prisons in the country. The jail’s capacity is for 2,000 prisoners, but like most Indian prisons it is overcrowded and packs in more than 3,500 inmates. Its most famous prisoner was Indian independence leader Mohandas Gandhi.
Before leaving Mumbai for Pune, Dutt appealed to his fans to pray that his bail plea is successful. “Pray for me. I love my country,” Dutt told reporters while being led into a shuttered police van. “I have faith in the country’s judiciary.”
— Additional input from agencies
