New Delhi: The Special Tada court order sentencing Bollywood actor Sanjay Dutt in the 1993 Mumbai blast case doesn’t just mean six years’ jail life for the Bollywood star, it may mean a life of rigour and hard labour as the Bollywood star has been sentenced to rigorous imprisonment.
Punishments of rigorous imprisonment oblige the inmates to do hard labour. This means Dutt may be assigned to do any work ranging from a carpenter’s job to the tailoring one during his stay in jail. The decision on what Dutt would be doing will be taken by the Jail Superintendent.
Dutt, popularly known as Sanju Baba, has been lodged in a 90-sq-ft cell in the barrack number 10 of Arthur Road Jail in Central Mumbai. Dutt’s cell is next to the cell of another high-profile undertrial, Praveen Mahajan, who is facing charges of murdering his brother and former Union minister Pramod Mahajan.
Dutt is being held in a cell in the same building as gangster Abu Salem, who allegedly supplied Dutt a consignment of weapons and ammunition 14 years ago, sources said.
The jail enjoys the dubious distinction of having second highest number of undertrials lodged after New Delhi’s Tihar Central Prison. Once inside the jail, Dutt was treated like any other convict on Tuesday.
As soon as he arrived, he was taken to the tailor’s shop where he gave his measurement for the jail clothes. As per the jail manual, a convict is given a knee-high short, a white-colour shirt with two black stripes on either side, and a Nehru cap to wear during the confinement period.
Sanjay Dutt was also given a steel thali, two steel bowls and a steel glass, which he would be using for his meals, the source said.
Earlier, soon after the sentencing was pronounced, the police rushed Dutt to the Arthur Road Jail. The court, which sentenced him to six years’ rigorous imprisonment for illegal possession of an AK-56 assault rifle and a pistol, rejected Dutt’s application seeking permission to surrender later.
Priya, Sanjay’s elder sister Namrata and brothers-in-law Owen Roncon and Kumar Gaurav were among those who bid farewell to Dutt before he entered the high security jail in Central Mumbai.
The filmstar waved and blew kisses to his family members for some distance after passing them. “Bhaiyya, be strong,” Priya told Dutt before he entered the prison.
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