A very good Article on Sanjay Dutt - His sentence and the media by Ram Kamal Mukherjee
If melting a gun was a solution, US President Barrack Obama would have melted Saudi Arabia officially by now. But that’s not how it is, thankfully!
A criminal matters, and not his arms, it’s the brain that counts, not the machine.
If a 53-year-old Bollywoood power-player is found guilty for illegally possessing and destroying an AK-56 by India’s apex court, its ruling must be accepted, hands down. He may have repented for what he did one summer, 20 years ago, and reformed himself into a lovable family man. But does turning a hermit after aiding criminals help his well-wishers who are seeking pardon for him? If that’s the benchmark, then does every Ratnakar in India, and globally, stand a chance to become Rishi Valmiki? Should every Sanjay Dutt then be allowed chances to metamorphose into a Munnabhai because he’s remorseful? Most importantly, can the victims of the Mumbai Serial Blasts of 1993 and their families pardon the public figure for disfiguring their lives forever?
Everyone has been talking! We choose to ask questions based on factually recorded history, which is not boring, and definitely not as useless as it’s considered to be, hoping they’re answered some day…
Bollywood has been shedding tears. Visitors dropped by in dozens to meet the new-age Kancha and show their sympathy for what has been meted out to him. News channels have hammered their verdicts on the Mumbai Serial Blasts Case in various tones and undertones. The nexus between politics, glamour and the guns is naked. Manipulation is at its peak. Victims and their families await justice. The ‘new and improved’ star’s ‘friends’ feel that he has ‘suffered’ enough in the last 20 years.
His detractors obviously feel otherwise…What with a suffering that comprises a cushy life in a sprawling penthouse at a prime spot in the city, luxury four-wheelers, expensive holidays, and a new marriage that has added two more children to his life alongside a film company that’s just begun its run. As the drama unfolds, Stardust, instead of mouthing an opinion, decided to dive deep into the issue of Bollywood’s most sensational case – Sanjay Dutt and the underworld ‘don’ Dawood Ibrahim’s connections and its aftermath, and pose a few queries to the Bollywood intelligentsia hoping they’d have an apt answer, whenever.
On the afternoon of March 21, 2013, actor-producer Sanjay Dutt’s life changed with the apex court’s verdict that came for a case that had been going on for 20 years, something he dreaded would happen someday to him, something he had been getting nightmares about. The man in question was in possession of arms that were used to ruin the lives of hoards of Mumbai’s denizens forever. One afternoon, the city was rocked with 12 serial blasts in some of the most crowded pockets, killing hundreds of people, leading to bloodshed, numerous corpses in hospitals, some of which were of those men and women who were the sole bread-winners of their families. Plenty of children lost one or both their parents. The reasons, according to various official findings, were communal at the surface, personal at the core with vendetta at the root.
Days went by speculating what was happening inside the Dutt household after the verdict came. The futures of his current films appeared in jeopardy, especially the third Munnabhai outing, given that Sanjay is already 53 years old, and after his jail sentence, he’d be 56. According to the trade, a right-minded filmmaker would think twice before risking a hit franchise with an actor who’s old and tainted. Nevertheless, filmmakers, actors, and various other powerful men and women visited Sanjay, spent time with him consoling him and putting in strength in his head to pass through the phase. When Sanjay Dutt first stepped out of his abode to address the media that had parked itself outside his plush Imperial Heights address, he understandably looked jaded. His eyes gave it away that the orders had given him sleepless nights.
His eyes looked swollen, he seemed exhausted.
Question No 1:
Why didn’t he appear with his dear obliging wife Maanyata (Dilnawaz Sheikh), which he always does when he attends a media gathering? Why did he suddenly need his sister, an acting MP from the ruling party (Congress), Priya Dutt Roncon’s shoulders to cry on in front of the press?
This went undetected, while the TV crew and print journalists waited to hear Sanju ‘Baba’ speak up. He sat, sobbed, spoke. “I have already suffered for 20 years and been in jail for 18 months. If they want me to suffer more, I have to be strong. I am heart-broken because today along with me, my three children and my wife and my family will undergo the punishment. I have always respected the judicial system and will continue to do so, even with tears in my eyes. I am going to complete all my films and won’t let anyone down. I am overwhelmed by the support of my fans, the industry people, the media and all the well-wishers. They have always stood by me and supported me. I know in my heart that I have always been a good human being, respected the system and always been loyal to my country. My family is very emotional right now and I have to be strong for them. I am shattered and in emotional distress. I am sorry I can’t come down and meet you all. God is great and he will guide me through this,” was his official statement.
He insisted that he respects the law and would surrender on the day he’s asked to by the Supreme Court before the TADA Court in Mumbai. His friends, colleagues and supporters began seeking pardon for him, led by Justice Markandey Katju. Co-workers and producers meticulously worked out schedules (at least newspaper clippings every day claimed so), clubbing days and nights to complete Sanjay’s portions on all the movies which were on floors on March 21, 2013.
Amidst all this tamasha, the TV crew got its footage. Additional sympathy messages poured in. Obviously, it’s a heart-rending sight to see a man of Sanjay’s age and stature sobbing like child and pleading with people to believe he’s a changed human. Plenty were shaken with his pain, barring those who have already shed tears for 20 years since the barbaric bombings of 1993, and were awaiting the landmark judgement to make its way.
After the judgement came in, reports continued to pour in every single day, consuming tonnes of newsprint, stating how hard Sanjay has been working with his fellow actors and producers to complete all the pending work including dubbing for seven of his films before he’s sent off to the prison for three-and-a-half years. According a report in Times Of India, Sanjay, on March 21, 2013, had films like Peekay, Unglee, Zanjeer, Policegiri, a cameo in Ghanchakkar and Hasmukh Pighal Gaya to complete.
Of the list, on last check, Policegiri was nearly done. Ditto Zanjeer’s dubbing and his portions of Peekay. He had been shooting for his portions of Unglee, and when we went to press, he was left with 10-11 days of shooting and dubbing for the Karan Johar production. His cameo in Ghanchakkar had been scrapped, while he was planning to shoot his guest appearance in Hasmukh Pighal Gaya. On April 15, Sanjay’s lawyers moved the Supreme Court, asking for a leniency of sorts, and buffer the actor’s surrender for 196 days, allowing him to complete all the pending work on his films, which according to TOI, had approximately ` 278 crore running on them together.
On April 17, the day he was officially supposed to surrender, when all the other convicts did, Sanjay walked off with four weeks time from the Supreme Court to complete the work on his table and then surrender to the TADA Court in Mumbai in May. Sanjay resumed shooting, dubbing and other work on his pending films on April 18, which could well have been his second day in Pune’s Yerwada Jail that was ready to welcome him.
“Considering the peculiar facts and circumstances of the case and reasons stated in the petition, we are not inclined to extend the time by six months. However, we extend the time by four weeks from tomorrow. It’s made clear that no further extension will be granted,” a bench comprising justices P Sathasivam and B S Chauhan said. The apex court said that the actor will not be entitled to any further extension of time hereafter. The bench also noted in its order that senior advocate Harish Salve, appearing for Dutt, has agreed to the same. The CBI opposed the extension of time but was silenced by the court which asked why the agency didn’t file an appeal against Sanjay’s acquittal from TADA charges by the trial court.
Question No 2:
Now, isn’t this contradicting one’s own statements, where one continuously claimed that he would complete his work in the given time and head to jail to serve his sentence abiding by the law? And why are so many people asking the judiciary to be lenient to him when it has been merciless towards the other convicts?
Two decades have gone by since the horrific afternoon of March 12, 1993. We have a short-term memory, and we tend to forget pain and misery and move on. A generation of youngsters doesn’t even have memory of the dreaded day, either because they were born after that or they were just knee-high and wouldn’t understand what the ruckus was about. The ‘Black Friday’ had been buried in memory. But after Sanjay’s verdict, debates were held on national television. Social networking websites were overflowing with sentiments, mixed, and questions on whether Sanjay Dutt should be pardoned, and whether the court should have really been lenient with him because of his celebrity status and money power. With so many undecided souls, it only made sense for us to step in and do some public service.
Instead of being judgemental, we’re sharing some facts that you’d like to know, and raise a few more questions which you might think why you didn’t ask. A generation that grew up watching Munnabhai MBBS must know their heroes from villains and their facts from fiction. During a debate on prime time news, a die-hard fan enthused, “Baba ne sab ko jaadoo ki jhappi dee Munnabhai banke. Baba ko jail mein nahin jana chahiye!” (Sanjay propagated Gandhi’s philosophy of love and non-violence as Munnabhai, so he shouldn’t be jailed.) A participant responded, “Oh, so Ben Kingsley (who played MK Gandhi in Gandhi) should be pardoned even if he kills half the world.” Needless to say that like Walter Benjamin’s Angel Of History, Sanjay lived life with his face towards the past. He sees it as, ‘One catastrophe which keeps piling wreckage upon wreckage and hurls it in front of his feet.’ True.
Question No 3:
Should the judiciary and the film industry have been flexible towards him only because he has played good boy roles on screen?
After the Supreme Court upheld its earlier verdict and sentenced him for three years of imprisonment, faces began descending in their cars in bunches at Sanjay’s house, who feels ‘life has been unkind to him.’ From Salman Khan to Aamir Khan, the smallest filmmaker to Karan Johar and Rajkumar Hirani, everyone made their ‘haazris’. Item girl Rakhi Sawant even offered to serve the sentence on his behalf. The media diligently reported. According to one of the reports, the first shoot that Sanjay attended was Policegiri at Kamalistan Studios. The workers wore arm bands to show support to Dutt and condemn the orders.
The only actress who didn’t show sympathy and instead asked him to surrender and march to the prison with whatever dignity he’s left with was Rakhee Gulzar who has played his on-screen mother in several of his films including Khalnayak after which he first took his ‘prison break’. She told DNA, “It breaks my heart to say this. I love Sanjay like my own child. I’ve been associated with that wonderful family from the time I did Reshma Aur Shera which was my first film with his father Sunil Dutt saab. Sanjay has grown up in front of me. I remember him as a lonely child. After Nargis’ death, Dutt saab got busy with various activities. I remember at the outdoor location of one of my films, Sanjay had lice in his hair and his lips had gone white because of a vitamin deficiency. He is basically a loving and affectionate boy. But he got into the wrong company... And look where it has landed him today. I know how much he has gone through. But to say that his jail term should be pardoned because he has suffered a lot is insensitive to those whose lives were shattered by the 1993 bomb blasts. Instead of spending 20 years pleading innocence and victimisation, Sanjay should’ve accepted he had made a mistake, served his full sentence and started his life afresh. Instead, his advisers, hangers-on and those lawyers are misadvising him. Today, I see his so-called friends shedding tears and pleading for leniency. If he is pardoned, the common people’s faith in the legal system would be shaken. Instead, Sanjay should accept the court’s verdict with dignity and serve his sentence. His conscience would be clear. He will be loved and respected a lot more for accepting and abiding by the court’s verdict.”
Everyone adjusted their schedules for shooting and dubbing to ensure he has a smooth gateway to jail without any work left pending now, given that he had an additional four-week window. The actor-producer was on his toes completing impending commitments, and his wife, absent from the most crucial appearance before the media, was heard being busy meeting politicos from Delhi to save her pati parmeshwar from being thrown behind bars.
Question No 4:
What was Bollywood thinking when the city was in shreds? Wasn’t the bombing unkind to them and people around them? Do they really have to be politically correct to show support for someone who is held guilty by law?
Reportedly, Dutt’s first brush with the underworld king Dawood Ibrahim Kaskar in 1991 was on the sets of Yalgaar in Dubai. The boy-man was 31 then, brash, popular for his drinking habits and other vices, raised in the lap of luxury which his Bollywood superstar parents, Sunil and Nargis Dutt, had passed on to him as legacy. Anees Ibrahim (Dawood’s brother) frequented the sets to visit him. With his existing public image of a bad boy, Dawood weighed him higher than Feroze Khan and Kabir Bedi.
Those years, Bollywood wasn’t dictated by corporates. It wasn’t a government-recognised industry, and films were funded largely by the deep-pocketed ‘bhais’ of Dubai and Malaysia. Stars and films were remote controlled from overseas, and this ‘dhanda’ became the best way to turn black money into white. A source insists that Dawood researched on Sanjay Dutt, and discovered his substantial weakness for ‘substances’, his strained family affairs, relationships with women and his spoilt bunch of friends.
Noted film journalist Rauf Ahmed explored this fear psychosis in one of his columns. “You’d wake up and hear that Gulshan Kumar, whom one met at all the parties, had suddenly been shot dead outside a Shiv Mandir. Manisha Koirala’s brother was killed. Hrithik Roshan’s father was shot at after Kaho Na Pyaar Hai released. It was all to show the royalty of Bombay who really was the boss,” he wrote.
That said, it can’t be denied that the film industry and the underworld were dancing a particularly intricate pas de deux. In a section in Maximum City, author Suketu Mehta elaborates how Sanjay bailed out friend Vidhu Vinod Chopra from the underworld’s extortive acts. Apparently, he phoned Abu Salem and said, “This is the man who stood by me when I was in jail. You can’t touch him.” This justifies the Khalnayak’s stronghold in the film fraternity. He was murmured to be the ‘unofficial’ link between the industry and the underworld.
Question No 5:
Why does India love bad boys so much and is never seen as a stern mother to its children that have wronged and need to be duly penalised, which happens in the west regardless of who the child in question is? Why does an actor land better roles in films and more endorsements after he serves a jail term? Why didn’t more sensible films come Sanjay’s way when he hadn’t been jailed? And why did so many filmmakers pile up their films on his table given that the Supreme Court verdict was awaited on a said date and it was more than likely to be against him?
Strangely, when someone as famous as Robert Downey Jr or a Mel Gibson is imprisoned or punished beyond what the legal system in their home country mandated for drug habits or being racist, it leads to ostracisation. There are heavy losses, they lose out on roles and big endorsement deals. But that’s not what happens back home in the east. The way Sanjay Dutt was accepted back after he served jail, it almost proved that sensationalism sells.
Sanjay has gathered a coterie of supporters who blindly (literally) support him. The Chairman of the Press Council, Retd Justice Markandey Katju, wrote a letter to the Governor of Maharashtra and the President to excuse Sanjay from three years of imprisonment and not send anyone to jail till the mercy plea was decided upon. In a recent newspaper editorial, senior advocate Shanti Bhushan said that Sunil Dutt had helped Muslims in a riot-afflicted area and he had received threatening phone calls. He stated that there was ‘clear danger of a mob attack on Sanjay Dutt and his family’. And since ‘an attack by such a mob could not have been deterred except by the threat of an automatic weapon’, Sanjay should be pardoned for procuring and keeping an automatic weapon, unlicensed or not, by his bed. Really? Think!
West Bengal’s Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee believes Sanjay, who has already served 18 months of his five-year-sentence, has ‘suffered enough’. She gets nostalgic about Sunil Dutt, which doesn’t quite prove Sanjay’s innocence. If it’s a father’s reputation that precedes his son’s acts and the action thereafter, then even Dawood deserves to be pardoned because his father was an honest Head Constable with the Mumbai police. Author Husain Zaidi writes in Dongri to Dubai – Six Decades Of The Mumbai Mafia: “In the predominantly Muslim stronghold of Dongri, Ibrahim’s baithak was the first place people went to if they had a problem. It was privy to everything — from people discussing their choking lavatory drain to the excitement of the elopement of lovers or cases of police harassment.” Kaskar’s son is Dawood Ibrahim.
Question No 6:
So, should sons committing crimes be treated with utmost love and affection because their fathers and mothers have been humane and have given to society?
Those close to Sanjay believe that he has always been misunderstood by people. Veteran screen-writer Salim Khan, who also wrote Naam that popularised Sanjay, and is his friend Salman Khan’s father, says, “Wo ladka bewakoofi aur doosron ke behkaave mein aake kuch galtiyan kar gaya. Sanju is like a child who, without realising the consequences of what he was doing, did something illegal. He’s not affiliated to a terrorist outfit; he’s not a rioter and has never been unkind to anyone. He kept arms and tried destroying them under someone’s influence and on both occasions, he didn’t gauge the consequences of his act correctly. Otherwise, which man in his sanity would do something like that? The matter was blown out of proportion in his case because he’s an actor. There are so many others who have done worse things than him with respect to the blasts, but those people and their sentences aren’t spoken of. I’ve known his father and him for years. The media loves its fodder and he’s perhaps one of the juiciest they’ve got right now. You know our law is meant for reforms more than punishments. Imagine, if we had executed dacoit Ratnakar, would we ever have had a Ramayan written by Valmiki who emerged out of that man?” Correct. But can every Ratnakar become Valmiki for sure if given a chance? And why should he be given that chance?
While the media is milking Sanjay for filling its slots, filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt, in one of his earlier interviews to Tehelka magazine, had said, “Sanjay Dutt is not a man of words. He’s a disaster when he opens his mouth, he has no control of his tongue, he talks like a low-grade moron. He has never enjoyed hobnobbing with people of any intellectual pretensions. The lingo he used even then was that of the common man — foul-mouthed. Abusive environments made him very comfortable. The purer you are, the more distant you are from Sanju. The coarser you are, the more real you are to him. When I think of Sanjay, I see a man who cannot get out of his own nightmare. He is someone who is caught in a fortress of hell, he achieved whatever he did within its confines, but he could never leave. Happiness comes only to give him more pain. Happiness and unhappiness as they exist for Sanju don’t come in serial order; they exist simultaneously in the same frame.”
Bollywood, regardless of what Sanjay is for real, is out to support him. They want the government to go easy on celebrities, so they can enjoy the ‘privileges’ of being a star. But there are several others involved in the blasts who have no support, are not being considered for pardon, and definitely not being given a chance to think of a second chance at all at life. Otherwise, what justifies Manzoor Ahmed’s case who was booked under TADA just for driving Abu Salem to Sanjay’s Pali Hill residence?
In an exclusive interview to Tehelka, Manzoor’s wife Razia Bano had said, “My husband has nothing to do with the blasts. A Maruti 1000 was in his name. Abu Salem took him along. My husband went because he wanted to see what kind of houses stars like Sanjay Dutt live in. It’s our fate, see Sanjay Dutt has got the Arms Act and Manzoor has been booked under TADA when he had not even asked for weapons. Sanjay is a big guy. He has sources. What do we have? I don’t even have money to pay the lawyer any more. Sanjay Dutt can hire the best lawyers. If I had the money, I could also have hired a good lawyer.” Currently, she runs her house by stitching clothes.
A similar case was brought up by Headlines Today. Zaibunnisa Kazi has been booked for similar offences as Sanjay’s. She has been sentenced to five years of rigorious imprisonment without any allowance for redressal. Her daughter had a question and so do we:
Question No 7:
Is the Indian judiciary partial to celebrities, who have a coterie of lawyers who know the difference between interpretation and misrepresentation of law?
There were authentic phone records to prove Sanjay’s nexus with Anees Ibrahim. In a statement to Tehelka magazine, Joint Commissioner of Police, M N Singh, who headed the investigation with his deputy Rakesh Maria, mentioned that he came to know about his connection with the underworld when Sanjay confessed that he had been calling Anees. Cops extracted print outs from the MTNL head-office which showed that seven calls had been made to the White House in Dubai. They also checked with the Indian Embassy in Dubai confirming that the Dubai number belonged to Dawood’s brother.
Only a few of the over 150 accused in the serial blasts case had been in touch with either Dawood or Anees when the conspiracy was hatched. Sanjay was one of them. The records were handed over to the CBI. Tehelka details, “When the time came to pin Sanjay down in court, the CBI chose to omit the record related to the telephone calls in its final submission against Sanjay before the TADA court. The prosecution’s submission reveals that the CBI has not brought the telephone conversation-related evidence on record. Sources in the CBI said that since the court had not accepted the telephone records as evidence against Sanjay, they decided to delete them from their written submission.”
Question No 8:
If someone did something out of sheer innocence without realising the consequences of what he was doing, why did Sanjay become one of those few who made several phone calls to Anees Ibrahim in Dubai when the blast conspiracy was hatched?
Over the last two decades, Sanjay has been taken to jail thrice, appeared for several court hearings and lost his father and his biggest support system in his family. He has re-married twice and has twins from his third marriage to Maanyata, a small-time item girl Dilnawaz, with a suspicious background.
According to an article printed in September 2008 in Society, Sanjay’s current wife’s mother Duhreyshwar, brother Naved and sister Nida, moved out of their shady Blessings Apartment house in Versova to a lesser known place after she married Sanjay. Her uncle, who resides in Gulistan Building in the same locality, had even refused to have known anyone by the name Maanyata or Dilnawaz. Reportedly, she’s been married twice, with a baby boy from one of them who she claims is her brother born when she was nearing 30 and her parents had been apart for years. Confused? We don’t blame you!
No one knows where she came from, and how Sanjay took a fancy to her despite her notorious background, which her former neighbours confirm she has, given that she was even known to have stolen jewellery from her best friend’s house (Soceity, September 2008).
Question No 9:
Why did Sanjay enter into an alliance with a woman despite his well-wishers and family opposing it staunchly, to the point that he was forced to keep the wedding a secret till the rituals were completed?
The actor it seems had appealed earlier that he had a child (Trishala) whose responsibility rested on his shoulders. He was granted bail on those grounds back then. After that, years went by. Trishala, the world knows, was raised by her maternal grandparents and her maternal aunt Enna in USA and would meet Sanjay only occasionally. Several years later, instead of marrying off his grown-up daughter, he married a much younger lady in 2008, which was such a surprise that even his sisters, Namrata and Priya, and daughter were shell-shocked. The daughter objected to his alliance, but eventually reports came in that Maanyata and she had become friends in the Bahamas where Sanjay shot Blue with Akshay Kumar. The sisters still maintain a ‘no comments’ stance on the wife.
As expected and suspected by many, Maanyata is said to have distanced plenty of people from Sanjay including some of his closest friends like Sanjay Gupta, associates, and even his family members. Journalist Rauf Ahmed, who was working on his biography with Random House, gave up on the book when Sanjay informed him that Maanyata would be dealing with the creative aspects. It’s said that Maanyata convinced Sanjay to move against his sister Priya and join hands with Samajwadi Party instead of Congress, which also didn’t do much for Sanjay’s public image although he visibly enjoyed his new phase. It only created more distances between the siblings, which is evident from their body-languages. Today, BJP and various other party leaders have not made a bone to call him a “traitor” and a “criminal”. But his family stands with him, silently and strongly.
At the movies, his second innings, which started with Vaastav, reached a stage where he has over ` 200 crore riding on close to a half-a-dozen films of his, some of which have neared completion. He made an announcement a year ago in Hindustan Times that Maanyata, who has ‘studied business’, will take charge of the finances in his film business as the CEO of Sanjay Dutt Productions. His manager Dharam Oberoi, who had been with him for years, was sacked on a suspicious note.
Sanjay seemed to have too many friends for whom he has done a lot. A chunk of them were dumped like hot potatoes after Maanyata’s entry in the Dutt clan. Today, the friends who’ve stick around have pledged to stand by him. But according to a report in the Indian Express, Kersi Adajania, who is 83 today, hasn’t received a single phone call from the actor after he helped him destroy an AK-56 rifle two decades ago, being the true friend in need and the friend in deed. “I saw some reports on TV on how Sanjay Dutt has helped his friends. What has he done for his friends I wonder. In these 20 years, he hasn’t called my father even once,” said Adajania’s son Viraf, adding, “Dutt has spoken of how he is 52 and works for a living but what about my father? He is over 82, partially deaf and has serious coronary problems. How can a man be reformed at such an old age by serving prison?”
When asked, advocate Mahesh Jethmalani, who has often been dragged into the matter for his opinion on whether Dutt should be pardoned or jailed, he said, “I’ve been asked for my opinion too often and I’ve been part of this too many times. I don’t think I’d like to say anything on this now. Sorry!”
Sanjay and his cronies have often claimed that he has suffered a lot in these 20 years and that forms the basis of their argument before the judiciary to let him go scot free.
Question No 10:
Will the real Sanjay Dutt stand up and tell us what has he really suffered the most in these 20 years when some commoners awaited, and continue to await, justice?
Around the time of going to press, the trade murmured that if Sanjay doesn’t manage to complete his films this time, he will either be replaced by other actors or his parts will be snipped. The fate of the films that he manages to complete seems equally grim. Box office and trade analyst Taran Adarsh believes that the future of his films which are underway right now will depend on the content in each one of them. “Khalnayak released when he went to jail; in that he played the lead. And it was a huge hit. Of the four films he has on the floors, he plays the lead only in Policegiri.” In 1994, when Dutt was sent to jail, Anil Kapoor replaced him in Trimurti, Akshay Kumar’s role in Amaanat was increased, and Mahanta, Vijeta and Shatranj were delayed, which could happen again if he went into jail without completing his pending films.
Sanjay moved the Supreme Court asking for his date of surrender to be postponed by six months but he could only manage four weeks. Going by the wave of sympathy and unprecedented support, Sanjay may even file a revision petition which is permissible under the Arms Act, and if it gets accepted, he will return to his ‘sufferings’ permanently. On last check, Ajay Devgn, who was showered with a hit, Son Of Sardaar, and Salman Khan, who is undergoing two court trials, have promised to work for ‘Manyaata bhabhiji’ and keep Sanju’s kitchen running till he returns.
Question No 11:
Where would he return from if Sanjay doesn’t even go to jail and serve imprisonment for aiding a crime as dreadful as the Mumbai Serial Blasts?
FACTS FROM THE FILES
It wasn’t just Sunil Dutt’s health that was waning. He seemed to have lost the respect of his fellow politicians. In a particularly humiliating instance, Sharad Pawar made Dutt wait for him in a lobby for over three hours. Thugs, displeased with his pro-Muslim work, had begun to threaten the Dutt family. Sunil had asked for extra security. But Sanjay thought his father might not be able to do enough to protect the family and bought another gun — a fourth, unlicensed automatic weapon to add to his three licensed firearms.
When Sunil Dutt came to know that the Mumbai Police had found that his son had acquired AK-56 guns from Dawood Ibrahim’s brother Anees, and had destroyed one after the serial blasts in Bombay, he informed the Police Commissioner AS Samra that his son was returning that night (April 19, 1993) from Mauritius. The police arrested Sanjay from the airport.
Joint Commissioner of Police MN Singh and his deputy Rakesh Maria interrogated and Sanjay broke down and narrated the story. Sunil and his daughter Priya met Sanjay and asked the reason for his act. “Because I have Muslim blood in my veins. I could not bear what was happening in the city,” Sanjay had said. A crestfallen Sunil Dutt left the police headquarters.
Quite in contrast to what he felt in 1993, Sanjay’s forehead was smeared with a long sindoor tilak on judgement day — November 28, 2006. Thirteen years after he was arrested on charges of acquiring three AK-56 rifles, nine magazines, 450 cartridges and over 20 hand grenades — weapons and explosives associated either with terrorists or counter-insurgency forces — his case was finally to be decided and Sanjay was nervous.
Satish Maneshinde, one of Sanjay Dutt’s key lawyers, was nervous too. Unlike his client Sanjay, who had asked for the weapons, stored them, asked for them to be destroyed and even admitted to his association with Anees Ibrahim, another accused Zaibunissa Kazi had only stored them for a few days and was booked under TADA. Her role was in no way comparable to Sanjay’s.
A day earlier, another co-accused Manzoor Ahmed had similarly been held guilty under TADA. Abu Salem and he had driven to Sanjay’s house to pick up the bag that was then kept at Zaibunissa Kazi’s house. Both she and Manzoor face the prospect of spending a minimum five years in jail, if not a life term.
Two other co-accused, Samir Hingora and Baba Mussa Chauhan were convicted under TADA for conspiracy and possession of prohibited arms in city limits.
The nature of the charges and the evidence against Chauhan and Sanjay were similar. Chauhan, like Sanjay, had in his possession three AK-56 rifles, some cartridges, magazines and hand grenades. Both Sanjay and Chauhan had the arms delivered to them by the same person — Abu Salem, who after the serial blasts of 1993 escaped the country and carried out criminal activities in India from abroad before being extradited in 2005.
Sanjay’s conviction under TADA seemed a fait accompli. But it was relieving for his battery of lawyers that he was convicted under the Arms Act only and is thus now in a position to even seek probation, which if granted, would ensure he doesn’t go to jail at all. No one knows the anomaly of the judgment better than Maneshinde.
On the spycam operation held by Tehelka, he has admitted, “When I will be asked by the Supreme Court why everyone else has got TADA and my client only the Arms Act, I will have no answer.” The statement says it all!
(Inputs from Tehelka)
With Thanks from Stardust - written by Ram Kamal Mukherjee
A criminal matters, and not his arms, it’s the brain that counts, not the machine.
If a 53-year-old Bollywoood power-player is found guilty for illegally possessing and destroying an AK-56 by India’s apex court, its ruling must be accepted, hands down. He may have repented for what he did one summer, 20 years ago, and reformed himself into a lovable family man. But does turning a hermit after aiding criminals help his well-wishers who are seeking pardon for him? If that’s the benchmark, then does every Ratnakar in India, and globally, stand a chance to become Rishi Valmiki? Should every Sanjay Dutt then be allowed chances to metamorphose into a Munnabhai because he’s remorseful? Most importantly, can the victims of the Mumbai Serial Blasts of 1993 and their families pardon the public figure for disfiguring their lives forever?
Everyone has been talking! We choose to ask questions based on factually recorded history, which is not boring, and definitely not as useless as it’s considered to be, hoping they’re answered some day…
Bollywood has been shedding tears. Visitors dropped by in dozens to meet the new-age Kancha and show their sympathy for what has been meted out to him. News channels have hammered their verdicts on the Mumbai Serial Blasts Case in various tones and undertones. The nexus between politics, glamour and the guns is naked. Manipulation is at its peak. Victims and their families await justice. The ‘new and improved’ star’s ‘friends’ feel that he has ‘suffered’ enough in the last 20 years.
His detractors obviously feel otherwise…What with a suffering that comprises a cushy life in a sprawling penthouse at a prime spot in the city, luxury four-wheelers, expensive holidays, and a new marriage that has added two more children to his life alongside a film company that’s just begun its run. As the drama unfolds, Stardust, instead of mouthing an opinion, decided to dive deep into the issue of Bollywood’s most sensational case – Sanjay Dutt and the underworld ‘don’ Dawood Ibrahim’s connections and its aftermath, and pose a few queries to the Bollywood intelligentsia hoping they’d have an apt answer, whenever.
On the afternoon of March 21, 2013, actor-producer Sanjay Dutt’s life changed with the apex court’s verdict that came for a case that had been going on for 20 years, something he dreaded would happen someday to him, something he had been getting nightmares about. The man in question was in possession of arms that were used to ruin the lives of hoards of Mumbai’s denizens forever. One afternoon, the city was rocked with 12 serial blasts in some of the most crowded pockets, killing hundreds of people, leading to bloodshed, numerous corpses in hospitals, some of which were of those men and women who were the sole bread-winners of their families. Plenty of children lost one or both their parents. The reasons, according to various official findings, were communal at the surface, personal at the core with vendetta at the root.
Days went by speculating what was happening inside the Dutt household after the verdict came. The futures of his current films appeared in jeopardy, especially the third Munnabhai outing, given that Sanjay is already 53 years old, and after his jail sentence, he’d be 56. According to the trade, a right-minded filmmaker would think twice before risking a hit franchise with an actor who’s old and tainted. Nevertheless, filmmakers, actors, and various other powerful men and women visited Sanjay, spent time with him consoling him and putting in strength in his head to pass through the phase. When Sanjay Dutt first stepped out of his abode to address the media that had parked itself outside his plush Imperial Heights address, he understandably looked jaded. His eyes gave it away that the orders had given him sleepless nights.
His eyes looked swollen, he seemed exhausted.
Question No 1:
Why didn’t he appear with his dear obliging wife Maanyata (Dilnawaz Sheikh), which he always does when he attends a media gathering? Why did he suddenly need his sister, an acting MP from the ruling party (Congress), Priya Dutt Roncon’s shoulders to cry on in front of the press?
This went undetected, while the TV crew and print journalists waited to hear Sanju ‘Baba’ speak up. He sat, sobbed, spoke. “I have already suffered for 20 years and been in jail for 18 months. If they want me to suffer more, I have to be strong. I am heart-broken because today along with me, my three children and my wife and my family will undergo the punishment. I have always respected the judicial system and will continue to do so, even with tears in my eyes. I am going to complete all my films and won’t let anyone down. I am overwhelmed by the support of my fans, the industry people, the media and all the well-wishers. They have always stood by me and supported me. I know in my heart that I have always been a good human being, respected the system and always been loyal to my country. My family is very emotional right now and I have to be strong for them. I am shattered and in emotional distress. I am sorry I can’t come down and meet you all. God is great and he will guide me through this,” was his official statement.
He insisted that he respects the law and would surrender on the day he’s asked to by the Supreme Court before the TADA Court in Mumbai. His friends, colleagues and supporters began seeking pardon for him, led by Justice Markandey Katju. Co-workers and producers meticulously worked out schedules (at least newspaper clippings every day claimed so), clubbing days and nights to complete Sanjay’s portions on all the movies which were on floors on March 21, 2013.
Amidst all this tamasha, the TV crew got its footage. Additional sympathy messages poured in. Obviously, it’s a heart-rending sight to see a man of Sanjay’s age and stature sobbing like child and pleading with people to believe he’s a changed human. Plenty were shaken with his pain, barring those who have already shed tears for 20 years since the barbaric bombings of 1993, and were awaiting the landmark judgement to make its way.
After the judgement came in, reports continued to pour in every single day, consuming tonnes of newsprint, stating how hard Sanjay has been working with his fellow actors and producers to complete all the pending work including dubbing for seven of his films before he’s sent off to the prison for three-and-a-half years. According a report in Times Of India, Sanjay, on March 21, 2013, had films like Peekay, Unglee, Zanjeer, Policegiri, a cameo in Ghanchakkar and Hasmukh Pighal Gaya to complete.
Of the list, on last check, Policegiri was nearly done. Ditto Zanjeer’s dubbing and his portions of Peekay. He had been shooting for his portions of Unglee, and when we went to press, he was left with 10-11 days of shooting and dubbing for the Karan Johar production. His cameo in Ghanchakkar had been scrapped, while he was planning to shoot his guest appearance in Hasmukh Pighal Gaya. On April 15, Sanjay’s lawyers moved the Supreme Court, asking for a leniency of sorts, and buffer the actor’s surrender for 196 days, allowing him to complete all the pending work on his films, which according to TOI, had approximately ` 278 crore running on them together.
On April 17, the day he was officially supposed to surrender, when all the other convicts did, Sanjay walked off with four weeks time from the Supreme Court to complete the work on his table and then surrender to the TADA Court in Mumbai in May. Sanjay resumed shooting, dubbing and other work on his pending films on April 18, which could well have been his second day in Pune’s Yerwada Jail that was ready to welcome him.
“Considering the peculiar facts and circumstances of the case and reasons stated in the petition, we are not inclined to extend the time by six months. However, we extend the time by four weeks from tomorrow. It’s made clear that no further extension will be granted,” a bench comprising justices P Sathasivam and B S Chauhan said. The apex court said that the actor will not be entitled to any further extension of time hereafter. The bench also noted in its order that senior advocate Harish Salve, appearing for Dutt, has agreed to the same. The CBI opposed the extension of time but was silenced by the court which asked why the agency didn’t file an appeal against Sanjay’s acquittal from TADA charges by the trial court.
Question No 2:
Now, isn’t this contradicting one’s own statements, where one continuously claimed that he would complete his work in the given time and head to jail to serve his sentence abiding by the law? And why are so many people asking the judiciary to be lenient to him when it has been merciless towards the other convicts?
Two decades have gone by since the horrific afternoon of March 12, 1993. We have a short-term memory, and we tend to forget pain and misery and move on. A generation of youngsters doesn’t even have memory of the dreaded day, either because they were born after that or they were just knee-high and wouldn’t understand what the ruckus was about. The ‘Black Friday’ had been buried in memory. But after Sanjay’s verdict, debates were held on national television. Social networking websites were overflowing with sentiments, mixed, and questions on whether Sanjay Dutt should be pardoned, and whether the court should have really been lenient with him because of his celebrity status and money power. With so many undecided souls, it only made sense for us to step in and do some public service.
Instead of being judgemental, we’re sharing some facts that you’d like to know, and raise a few more questions which you might think why you didn’t ask. A generation that grew up watching Munnabhai MBBS must know their heroes from villains and their facts from fiction. During a debate on prime time news, a die-hard fan enthused, “Baba ne sab ko jaadoo ki jhappi dee Munnabhai banke. Baba ko jail mein nahin jana chahiye!” (Sanjay propagated Gandhi’s philosophy of love and non-violence as Munnabhai, so he shouldn’t be jailed.) A participant responded, “Oh, so Ben Kingsley (who played MK Gandhi in Gandhi) should be pardoned even if he kills half the world.” Needless to say that like Walter Benjamin’s Angel Of History, Sanjay lived life with his face towards the past. He sees it as, ‘One catastrophe which keeps piling wreckage upon wreckage and hurls it in front of his feet.’ True.
Question No 3:
Should the judiciary and the film industry have been flexible towards him only because he has played good boy roles on screen?
After the Supreme Court upheld its earlier verdict and sentenced him for three years of imprisonment, faces began descending in their cars in bunches at Sanjay’s house, who feels ‘life has been unkind to him.’ From Salman Khan to Aamir Khan, the smallest filmmaker to Karan Johar and Rajkumar Hirani, everyone made their ‘haazris’. Item girl Rakhi Sawant even offered to serve the sentence on his behalf. The media diligently reported. According to one of the reports, the first shoot that Sanjay attended was Policegiri at Kamalistan Studios. The workers wore arm bands to show support to Dutt and condemn the orders.
The only actress who didn’t show sympathy and instead asked him to surrender and march to the prison with whatever dignity he’s left with was Rakhee Gulzar who has played his on-screen mother in several of his films including Khalnayak after which he first took his ‘prison break’. She told DNA, “It breaks my heart to say this. I love Sanjay like my own child. I’ve been associated with that wonderful family from the time I did Reshma Aur Shera which was my first film with his father Sunil Dutt saab. Sanjay has grown up in front of me. I remember him as a lonely child. After Nargis’ death, Dutt saab got busy with various activities. I remember at the outdoor location of one of my films, Sanjay had lice in his hair and his lips had gone white because of a vitamin deficiency. He is basically a loving and affectionate boy. But he got into the wrong company... And look where it has landed him today. I know how much he has gone through. But to say that his jail term should be pardoned because he has suffered a lot is insensitive to those whose lives were shattered by the 1993 bomb blasts. Instead of spending 20 years pleading innocence and victimisation, Sanjay should’ve accepted he had made a mistake, served his full sentence and started his life afresh. Instead, his advisers, hangers-on and those lawyers are misadvising him. Today, I see his so-called friends shedding tears and pleading for leniency. If he is pardoned, the common people’s faith in the legal system would be shaken. Instead, Sanjay should accept the court’s verdict with dignity and serve his sentence. His conscience would be clear. He will be loved and respected a lot more for accepting and abiding by the court’s verdict.”
Everyone adjusted their schedules for shooting and dubbing to ensure he has a smooth gateway to jail without any work left pending now, given that he had an additional four-week window. The actor-producer was on his toes completing impending commitments, and his wife, absent from the most crucial appearance before the media, was heard being busy meeting politicos from Delhi to save her pati parmeshwar from being thrown behind bars.
Question No 4:
What was Bollywood thinking when the city was in shreds? Wasn’t the bombing unkind to them and people around them? Do they really have to be politically correct to show support for someone who is held guilty by law?
Reportedly, Dutt’s first brush with the underworld king Dawood Ibrahim Kaskar in 1991 was on the sets of Yalgaar in Dubai. The boy-man was 31 then, brash, popular for his drinking habits and other vices, raised in the lap of luxury which his Bollywood superstar parents, Sunil and Nargis Dutt, had passed on to him as legacy. Anees Ibrahim (Dawood’s brother) frequented the sets to visit him. With his existing public image of a bad boy, Dawood weighed him higher than Feroze Khan and Kabir Bedi.
Those years, Bollywood wasn’t dictated by corporates. It wasn’t a government-recognised industry, and films were funded largely by the deep-pocketed ‘bhais’ of Dubai and Malaysia. Stars and films were remote controlled from overseas, and this ‘dhanda’ became the best way to turn black money into white. A source insists that Dawood researched on Sanjay Dutt, and discovered his substantial weakness for ‘substances’, his strained family affairs, relationships with women and his spoilt bunch of friends.
Noted film journalist Rauf Ahmed explored this fear psychosis in one of his columns. “You’d wake up and hear that Gulshan Kumar, whom one met at all the parties, had suddenly been shot dead outside a Shiv Mandir. Manisha Koirala’s brother was killed. Hrithik Roshan’s father was shot at after Kaho Na Pyaar Hai released. It was all to show the royalty of Bombay who really was the boss,” he wrote.
That said, it can’t be denied that the film industry and the underworld were dancing a particularly intricate pas de deux. In a section in Maximum City, author Suketu Mehta elaborates how Sanjay bailed out friend Vidhu Vinod Chopra from the underworld’s extortive acts. Apparently, he phoned Abu Salem and said, “This is the man who stood by me when I was in jail. You can’t touch him.” This justifies the Khalnayak’s stronghold in the film fraternity. He was murmured to be the ‘unofficial’ link between the industry and the underworld.
Question No 5:
Why does India love bad boys so much and is never seen as a stern mother to its children that have wronged and need to be duly penalised, which happens in the west regardless of who the child in question is? Why does an actor land better roles in films and more endorsements after he serves a jail term? Why didn’t more sensible films come Sanjay’s way when he hadn’t been jailed? And why did so many filmmakers pile up their films on his table given that the Supreme Court verdict was awaited on a said date and it was more than likely to be against him?
Strangely, when someone as famous as Robert Downey Jr or a Mel Gibson is imprisoned or punished beyond what the legal system in their home country mandated for drug habits or being racist, it leads to ostracisation. There are heavy losses, they lose out on roles and big endorsement deals. But that’s not what happens back home in the east. The way Sanjay Dutt was accepted back after he served jail, it almost proved that sensationalism sells.
Sanjay has gathered a coterie of supporters who blindly (literally) support him. The Chairman of the Press Council, Retd Justice Markandey Katju, wrote a letter to the Governor of Maharashtra and the President to excuse Sanjay from three years of imprisonment and not send anyone to jail till the mercy plea was decided upon. In a recent newspaper editorial, senior advocate Shanti Bhushan said that Sunil Dutt had helped Muslims in a riot-afflicted area and he had received threatening phone calls. He stated that there was ‘clear danger of a mob attack on Sanjay Dutt and his family’. And since ‘an attack by such a mob could not have been deterred except by the threat of an automatic weapon’, Sanjay should be pardoned for procuring and keeping an automatic weapon, unlicensed or not, by his bed. Really? Think!
West Bengal’s Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee believes Sanjay, who has already served 18 months of his five-year-sentence, has ‘suffered enough’. She gets nostalgic about Sunil Dutt, which doesn’t quite prove Sanjay’s innocence. If it’s a father’s reputation that precedes his son’s acts and the action thereafter, then even Dawood deserves to be pardoned because his father was an honest Head Constable with the Mumbai police. Author Husain Zaidi writes in Dongri to Dubai – Six Decades Of The Mumbai Mafia: “In the predominantly Muslim stronghold of Dongri, Ibrahim’s baithak was the first place people went to if they had a problem. It was privy to everything — from people discussing their choking lavatory drain to the excitement of the elopement of lovers or cases of police harassment.” Kaskar’s son is Dawood Ibrahim.
Question No 6:
So, should sons committing crimes be treated with utmost love and affection because their fathers and mothers have been humane and have given to society?
Those close to Sanjay believe that he has always been misunderstood by people. Veteran screen-writer Salim Khan, who also wrote Naam that popularised Sanjay, and is his friend Salman Khan’s father, says, “Wo ladka bewakoofi aur doosron ke behkaave mein aake kuch galtiyan kar gaya. Sanju is like a child who, without realising the consequences of what he was doing, did something illegal. He’s not affiliated to a terrorist outfit; he’s not a rioter and has never been unkind to anyone. He kept arms and tried destroying them under someone’s influence and on both occasions, he didn’t gauge the consequences of his act correctly. Otherwise, which man in his sanity would do something like that? The matter was blown out of proportion in his case because he’s an actor. There are so many others who have done worse things than him with respect to the blasts, but those people and their sentences aren’t spoken of. I’ve known his father and him for years. The media loves its fodder and he’s perhaps one of the juiciest they’ve got right now. You know our law is meant for reforms more than punishments. Imagine, if we had executed dacoit Ratnakar, would we ever have had a Ramayan written by Valmiki who emerged out of that man?” Correct. But can every Ratnakar become Valmiki for sure if given a chance? And why should he be given that chance?
While the media is milking Sanjay for filling its slots, filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt, in one of his earlier interviews to Tehelka magazine, had said, “Sanjay Dutt is not a man of words. He’s a disaster when he opens his mouth, he has no control of his tongue, he talks like a low-grade moron. He has never enjoyed hobnobbing with people of any intellectual pretensions. The lingo he used even then was that of the common man — foul-mouthed. Abusive environments made him very comfortable. The purer you are, the more distant you are from Sanju. The coarser you are, the more real you are to him. When I think of Sanjay, I see a man who cannot get out of his own nightmare. He is someone who is caught in a fortress of hell, he achieved whatever he did within its confines, but he could never leave. Happiness comes only to give him more pain. Happiness and unhappiness as they exist for Sanju don’t come in serial order; they exist simultaneously in the same frame.”
Bollywood, regardless of what Sanjay is for real, is out to support him. They want the government to go easy on celebrities, so they can enjoy the ‘privileges’ of being a star. But there are several others involved in the blasts who have no support, are not being considered for pardon, and definitely not being given a chance to think of a second chance at all at life. Otherwise, what justifies Manzoor Ahmed’s case who was booked under TADA just for driving Abu Salem to Sanjay’s Pali Hill residence?
In an exclusive interview to Tehelka, Manzoor’s wife Razia Bano had said, “My husband has nothing to do with the blasts. A Maruti 1000 was in his name. Abu Salem took him along. My husband went because he wanted to see what kind of houses stars like Sanjay Dutt live in. It’s our fate, see Sanjay Dutt has got the Arms Act and Manzoor has been booked under TADA when he had not even asked for weapons. Sanjay is a big guy. He has sources. What do we have? I don’t even have money to pay the lawyer any more. Sanjay Dutt can hire the best lawyers. If I had the money, I could also have hired a good lawyer.” Currently, she runs her house by stitching clothes.
A similar case was brought up by Headlines Today. Zaibunnisa Kazi has been booked for similar offences as Sanjay’s. She has been sentenced to five years of rigorious imprisonment without any allowance for redressal. Her daughter had a question and so do we:
Question No 7:
Is the Indian judiciary partial to celebrities, who have a coterie of lawyers who know the difference between interpretation and misrepresentation of law?
There were authentic phone records to prove Sanjay’s nexus with Anees Ibrahim. In a statement to Tehelka magazine, Joint Commissioner of Police, M N Singh, who headed the investigation with his deputy Rakesh Maria, mentioned that he came to know about his connection with the underworld when Sanjay confessed that he had been calling Anees. Cops extracted print outs from the MTNL head-office which showed that seven calls had been made to the White House in Dubai. They also checked with the Indian Embassy in Dubai confirming that the Dubai number belonged to Dawood’s brother.
Only a few of the over 150 accused in the serial blasts case had been in touch with either Dawood or Anees when the conspiracy was hatched. Sanjay was one of them. The records were handed over to the CBI. Tehelka details, “When the time came to pin Sanjay down in court, the CBI chose to omit the record related to the telephone calls in its final submission against Sanjay before the TADA court. The prosecution’s submission reveals that the CBI has not brought the telephone conversation-related evidence on record. Sources in the CBI said that since the court had not accepted the telephone records as evidence against Sanjay, they decided to delete them from their written submission.”
Question No 8:
If someone did something out of sheer innocence without realising the consequences of what he was doing, why did Sanjay become one of those few who made several phone calls to Anees Ibrahim in Dubai when the blast conspiracy was hatched?
Over the last two decades, Sanjay has been taken to jail thrice, appeared for several court hearings and lost his father and his biggest support system in his family. He has re-married twice and has twins from his third marriage to Maanyata, a small-time item girl Dilnawaz, with a suspicious background.
According to an article printed in September 2008 in Society, Sanjay’s current wife’s mother Duhreyshwar, brother Naved and sister Nida, moved out of their shady Blessings Apartment house in Versova to a lesser known place after she married Sanjay. Her uncle, who resides in Gulistan Building in the same locality, had even refused to have known anyone by the name Maanyata or Dilnawaz. Reportedly, she’s been married twice, with a baby boy from one of them who she claims is her brother born when she was nearing 30 and her parents had been apart for years. Confused? We don’t blame you!
No one knows where she came from, and how Sanjay took a fancy to her despite her notorious background, which her former neighbours confirm she has, given that she was even known to have stolen jewellery from her best friend’s house (Soceity, September 2008).
Question No 9:
Why did Sanjay enter into an alliance with a woman despite his well-wishers and family opposing it staunchly, to the point that he was forced to keep the wedding a secret till the rituals were completed?
The actor it seems had appealed earlier that he had a child (Trishala) whose responsibility rested on his shoulders. He was granted bail on those grounds back then. After that, years went by. Trishala, the world knows, was raised by her maternal grandparents and her maternal aunt Enna in USA and would meet Sanjay only occasionally. Several years later, instead of marrying off his grown-up daughter, he married a much younger lady in 2008, which was such a surprise that even his sisters, Namrata and Priya, and daughter were shell-shocked. The daughter objected to his alliance, but eventually reports came in that Maanyata and she had become friends in the Bahamas where Sanjay shot Blue with Akshay Kumar. The sisters still maintain a ‘no comments’ stance on the wife.
As expected and suspected by many, Maanyata is said to have distanced plenty of people from Sanjay including some of his closest friends like Sanjay Gupta, associates, and even his family members. Journalist Rauf Ahmed, who was working on his biography with Random House, gave up on the book when Sanjay informed him that Maanyata would be dealing with the creative aspects. It’s said that Maanyata convinced Sanjay to move against his sister Priya and join hands with Samajwadi Party instead of Congress, which also didn’t do much for Sanjay’s public image although he visibly enjoyed his new phase. It only created more distances between the siblings, which is evident from their body-languages. Today, BJP and various other party leaders have not made a bone to call him a “traitor” and a “criminal”. But his family stands with him, silently and strongly.
At the movies, his second innings, which started with Vaastav, reached a stage where he has over ` 200 crore riding on close to a half-a-dozen films of his, some of which have neared completion. He made an announcement a year ago in Hindustan Times that Maanyata, who has ‘studied business’, will take charge of the finances in his film business as the CEO of Sanjay Dutt Productions. His manager Dharam Oberoi, who had been with him for years, was sacked on a suspicious note.
Sanjay seemed to have too many friends for whom he has done a lot. A chunk of them were dumped like hot potatoes after Maanyata’s entry in the Dutt clan. Today, the friends who’ve stick around have pledged to stand by him. But according to a report in the Indian Express, Kersi Adajania, who is 83 today, hasn’t received a single phone call from the actor after he helped him destroy an AK-56 rifle two decades ago, being the true friend in need and the friend in deed. “I saw some reports on TV on how Sanjay Dutt has helped his friends. What has he done for his friends I wonder. In these 20 years, he hasn’t called my father even once,” said Adajania’s son Viraf, adding, “Dutt has spoken of how he is 52 and works for a living but what about my father? He is over 82, partially deaf and has serious coronary problems. How can a man be reformed at such an old age by serving prison?”
When asked, advocate Mahesh Jethmalani, who has often been dragged into the matter for his opinion on whether Dutt should be pardoned or jailed, he said, “I’ve been asked for my opinion too often and I’ve been part of this too many times. I don’t think I’d like to say anything on this now. Sorry!”
Sanjay and his cronies have often claimed that he has suffered a lot in these 20 years and that forms the basis of their argument before the judiciary to let him go scot free.
Question No 10:
Will the real Sanjay Dutt stand up and tell us what has he really suffered the most in these 20 years when some commoners awaited, and continue to await, justice?
Around the time of going to press, the trade murmured that if Sanjay doesn’t manage to complete his films this time, he will either be replaced by other actors or his parts will be snipped. The fate of the films that he manages to complete seems equally grim. Box office and trade analyst Taran Adarsh believes that the future of his films which are underway right now will depend on the content in each one of them. “Khalnayak released when he went to jail; in that he played the lead. And it was a huge hit. Of the four films he has on the floors, he plays the lead only in Policegiri.” In 1994, when Dutt was sent to jail, Anil Kapoor replaced him in Trimurti, Akshay Kumar’s role in Amaanat was increased, and Mahanta, Vijeta and Shatranj were delayed, which could happen again if he went into jail without completing his pending films.
Sanjay moved the Supreme Court asking for his date of surrender to be postponed by six months but he could only manage four weeks. Going by the wave of sympathy and unprecedented support, Sanjay may even file a revision petition which is permissible under the Arms Act, and if it gets accepted, he will return to his ‘sufferings’ permanently. On last check, Ajay Devgn, who was showered with a hit, Son Of Sardaar, and Salman Khan, who is undergoing two court trials, have promised to work for ‘Manyaata bhabhiji’ and keep Sanju’s kitchen running till he returns.
Question No 11:
Where would he return from if Sanjay doesn’t even go to jail and serve imprisonment for aiding a crime as dreadful as the Mumbai Serial Blasts?
FACTS FROM THE FILES
It wasn’t just Sunil Dutt’s health that was waning. He seemed to have lost the respect of his fellow politicians. In a particularly humiliating instance, Sharad Pawar made Dutt wait for him in a lobby for over three hours. Thugs, displeased with his pro-Muslim work, had begun to threaten the Dutt family. Sunil had asked for extra security. But Sanjay thought his father might not be able to do enough to protect the family and bought another gun — a fourth, unlicensed automatic weapon to add to his three licensed firearms.
When Sunil Dutt came to know that the Mumbai Police had found that his son had acquired AK-56 guns from Dawood Ibrahim’s brother Anees, and had destroyed one after the serial blasts in Bombay, he informed the Police Commissioner AS Samra that his son was returning that night (April 19, 1993) from Mauritius. The police arrested Sanjay from the airport.
Joint Commissioner of Police MN Singh and his deputy Rakesh Maria interrogated and Sanjay broke down and narrated the story. Sunil and his daughter Priya met Sanjay and asked the reason for his act. “Because I have Muslim blood in my veins. I could not bear what was happening in the city,” Sanjay had said. A crestfallen Sunil Dutt left the police headquarters.
Quite in contrast to what he felt in 1993, Sanjay’s forehead was smeared with a long sindoor tilak on judgement day — November 28, 2006. Thirteen years after he was arrested on charges of acquiring three AK-56 rifles, nine magazines, 450 cartridges and over 20 hand grenades — weapons and explosives associated either with terrorists or counter-insurgency forces — his case was finally to be decided and Sanjay was nervous.
Satish Maneshinde, one of Sanjay Dutt’s key lawyers, was nervous too. Unlike his client Sanjay, who had asked for the weapons, stored them, asked for them to be destroyed and even admitted to his association with Anees Ibrahim, another accused Zaibunissa Kazi had only stored them for a few days and was booked under TADA. Her role was in no way comparable to Sanjay’s.
A day earlier, another co-accused Manzoor Ahmed had similarly been held guilty under TADA. Abu Salem and he had driven to Sanjay’s house to pick up the bag that was then kept at Zaibunissa Kazi’s house. Both she and Manzoor face the prospect of spending a minimum five years in jail, if not a life term.
Two other co-accused, Samir Hingora and Baba Mussa Chauhan were convicted under TADA for conspiracy and possession of prohibited arms in city limits.
The nature of the charges and the evidence against Chauhan and Sanjay were similar. Chauhan, like Sanjay, had in his possession three AK-56 rifles, some cartridges, magazines and hand grenades. Both Sanjay and Chauhan had the arms delivered to them by the same person — Abu Salem, who after the serial blasts of 1993 escaped the country and carried out criminal activities in India from abroad before being extradited in 2005.
Sanjay’s conviction under TADA seemed a fait accompli. But it was relieving for his battery of lawyers that he was convicted under the Arms Act only and is thus now in a position to even seek probation, which if granted, would ensure he doesn’t go to jail at all. No one knows the anomaly of the judgment better than Maneshinde.
On the spycam operation held by Tehelka, he has admitted, “When I will be asked by the Supreme Court why everyone else has got TADA and my client only the Arms Act, I will have no answer.” The statement says it all!
(Inputs from Tehelka)
With Thanks from Stardust - written by Ram Kamal Mukherjee