Bollywood's Sanjay Dutt sent to Pune prison to serve jail term

Almost a week after he surrendered, actor Sanjay Dutt was shifted out in the middle of the night from Mumbai's Arthur Road Jail and sent to Pune's Yerwada prison.

Dutt, 53, surrendered last Thursday to serve out the remaining three-and-a-half years of a five-year term for illegal arms possession.

The actor will spend the next 42 months in Yerwada prison, reports Indian news channel IBN.

Sanjay Dutt accompanied by his wife Manyata leaving his residence  to surrender before the TADA court in Mumbai on Thursday. (AFP)

The actor was brought to Arthur Road Jail on May 16, hours after he surrendered at a special TADA court amid much chaos.

Hundreds of people, including media, crowded his car. The actor was able to get out and make his way into the courtroom only after about 20 minutes and much difficulty.

Moments before Sanjay Dutt surrender to the court. (Twitter)

Earlier Dutt's lawyer, Rizwan Merchant, had demanded the transfer of the actor in Arthur Rd jail, whom he said was being kept in the cell once occupied by Mumbai attacks gunman Mohammed Ajmal Kasab.

Pakistani-born Kasab was executed last November, nearly four years after 166 people died in a three-day rampage that traumatised India.

The steel bunker specially built for Kasab at Mumbai's Arthur Road Jail had no ventilation and the actor could not even tell if it was day or night, the lawyer said.

"He (Dutt) is not a terrorist" and should not be kept in such a cell, the lawyer was quoted as saying.

There was no immediate comment available from the jail.

The actor, whose parents were two of India's biggest stars, shot to fame in the 1980s in a string of action movies in which he performed his own stunts, earning him the nickname ‘Deadly Dutt’.

He was convicted in 2006 of possessing guns supplied by gangsters who staged the 1993 bomb attacks that killed 257 people but was freed on bail after serving 18 months in prison. In March, the Supreme Court upheld Dutt's conviction.

He was cleared in 2007 of more serious conspiracy charges in the blasts, believed staged by Muslim underworld leaders in revenge for religious riots in which mainly Muslims died after the razing of an ancient mosque by Hindu zealots.

Dutt, whose mother was Muslim and father Hindu, was found guilty of possession of an automatic rifle and a pistol which he insisted were only meant to protect his family in Mumbai's charged atmosphere following the mosque's destruction.

After the Supreme Court upheld his conviction, the father-of-three wept and declared himself "a shattered man".

Follow Emirates 24|7 on Google News.