Actor Sanjay Dutt is comforted by his sister and Member of Parliament Priya Dutt as he breaks down during a media conference outside his residence in Mumbai yesterday.
MUMBAI: Bollywood star Sanjay Dutt wept yesterday as he announced he was abandoning his fight to avoid being sent back to jail for possessing arms supplied by plotters of the deadly 1993 Mumbai blasts.
Supporters had been urging Dutt to seek a pardon, after the Supreme Court last week struck down his appeal and sentenced him to five years for possessing firearms supplied by gangland bosses, who staged the string of bombings that killed 257 people.
But in an emotional press conference, Dutt said he would accept his fate and surrender to prison authorities before a deadline expires in three weeks’ time.
“I am a shattered man, my family is shattered. These are tough times in my life,” Dutt told reporters in Mumbai while frequently breaking down in tears.
“With folded hands, I want to tell the media and the citizens of the country that I have not applied for pardon,” added Dutt.
“I will surrender,” he said, afterwards hugging his sister and politician Priya Dutt, who was among the family members with him.
Dutt has already served 18 months of his sentence but was released on bail while his case was appealed to the Supreme Court, which reduced his sentence from six years to five last Thursday.
Dutt was acquitted in 2007 of conspiracy charges over the blasts staged by Mumbai’s criminal world.
The bombings across the city were seen as retaliation for religious rioting following the razing of an ancient mosque.
But Dutt was found guilty of possession of an automatic rifle and a pistol which he insisted in his defence were only meant to protect his family because of the charged atmosphere in Mumbai following the mosque’s destruction.
Messages of sympathy and solidarity have poured in for the star since the Supreme Court verdict.
Several high-profile figures have called for Maharashtra’s state governor to reduce Dutt’s term on humanitarian grounds.
Press Council of India chairman Markandey Katju — a former Supreme Court judge and one of the loudest voices championing Dutt — said he will still seek a pardon for the actor. Dutt’s statement “makes no difference to me. I am going to apply for pardon”, Katju told the Press Trust of India news agency.
But others have said Dutt should not be let off because he is rich and influential. “Justice is about laws and evidence,” Shekhar Gupta, editor-in-chief of The Indian Express, wrote in a recent column.
Dutt’s first wife died of cancer while his second marriage, to a model, ended in divorce. He wed for a third time in 2008 and has two young children.
Some 2.5 billion rupees ($45m) are riding on Dutt in Bollywood, with four or five films in the pipeline, analysts estimate.
AFP
