MUMBAI: Bollywood has united to rally around convicted actor Sanjay Dutt, who has been sentenced to five years in jail for illegal possession of arms, in connection with the horrific 1993 serial terror attacks which rocked Mumbai.
Under the Arms Act, the Supreme Court has upheld the sentence awarded to Sanjay Dutt in 2007 which acquitted him of conspiracy charges but held the actor guilty of receiving guns from the terrorists’ associates involved in the bombings.
Yesterday, the apex Court awarded Dutt 5 years in jail, of which he has already served 1.5 years previously. Sanjay Dutt has been given a time frame of 4 weeks either to file a review petition, or surrender himself.
As soon as news broke of Dutt’s sentence, Bollywood rallied around their ‘Munnabhai’ aka Sanjay Dutt, expressing shock and disbelief, and not to mention an immense sense of grief for Sanjay.
Many, like Karan Johar, Hrithik Roshan, Pritish Nandy, Arjun Rampal, Ritesh Deshmukh took to twitter to express their shock and outrage at the conviction.
Spotted rushing to Sanjay Dutt’s residence soon after the SC verdict was made public, were a host of Bollywood actors, film-makers and producers. Among the first to arrive were Dutt’s good friends Bunty Walia and Milan Luthria, who came around the same time that ‘Kahaani’ filmmaker Sujoy Ghosh arrived. Good friend Rajkumar Hirani was also spooted at the Dutt residence.
Congress MLA Baba Siddiqui, who is a close friend to the Dutts, also came to show his solidarity with the family. Sanjay’s sister Congress MP Priya Dutt was also spotted at his residence, looking distraught at the news.
Superstar Ranbir Kapoor, Farhan Akhtar, Prabhu Deva, filmmakers Anees Bazmee were also seen at the Dutt residence.
As we reported yesterday, the makers of films which star Sanjay Dutt were in even more turmoil, as they would have to decide how to wrap up shoots involving Dutt, or whether to snip his role in their films. Dutt’s upcoming lineup of films includes ‘Unglee’, ‘Policegiri’, ‘Zanjeer’ and ‘Peekay’.
