A police prison guard in India has been suspended after he hugged Bollywood actor Sanjay Dutt as he was being released from jail, officials say.
Eight other constables who shook hands with Dutt as he emerged from jail near Mumbai (Bombay) on bail last week have also been told to explain themselves.
Television channels showed the police guards smiling and greeting the star after his 22 days of incarceration.
He was jailed for buying weapons from bombers who attacked Mumbai in 1993.
This action amounts to violation of prison rules and decorum
Dutt was given temporary bail from the high security Yerwada prison – in the city of Pune, 160km (100 miles) south-east of Mumbai – by the Supreme Court last week.
He is the most high-profile of 100 people convicted in connection with the blasts which killed 257 people.
He was cleared of conspiracy, but found guilty of illegally possessing a rifle and a pistol.
Rules broken
After the TV pictures emerged, the jail authorities announced the formation of a departmental inquiry.
“This action amounts to violation of prison rules and decorum as they were seen being friendly with a convicted criminal,” Rajendra Dhamne, the chief of the prison in Pune, told the Reuters news agency.
Hundreds of people were killed or injured in the blasts
Mr Dhamne said prison guards were expected to treat Dutt like any other convict.
Dutt is now in Mumbai, where he lives with his family.
The actor’s release was ordered on the grounds that a copy of the judgement, passed by the special anti-terror court in Mumbai, was yet to reach the actor.
But the court specified that the measure was a temporary one.
The judge said that as soon as the actor received a copy of the Mumbai court order, he would have to return to jail.
Only after that could the actor file an appeal for bail and the matter would be considered on merit, the judge added.
Dutt’s lawyers say that they will appeal against his sentence as soon as he receives the court order, which jail authorities say will be delivered to him around 27 September.
Although Dutt stopped signing up for new films some time before his sentencing, he remains one of the best-known actors in Bollywood.
His trial generated huge interest among Bollywood fans across India.
The son of a Hindu father and Muslim mother, Sanjay Dutt said the weapons were necessary in order to defend his family during the Hindu-Muslim rioting of 1993 that followed the destruction by Hindu zealots of the Babri mosque in Ayodhya.
Prosecutors said the Mumbai bombings were carried out by the city’s Muslim-dominated underworld in revenge for the riots, in which most of those killed were Muslims.
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