MUMBAI: Sanjay Dutt to surrender today, jail gets threat letter

Sanjay Dutt will surrender before a court on Thursday to undergo the prison term in the 1993 Mumbai blasts case, even as a jail official said the actor would be provided adequate security in the wake of an anonymous letter alleging threat to his life.

On Wednesday Dutt's lawyer Subhash Jadhav informed the special Tada court that the 53-year-old actor wanted to withdraw his application filed a day before seeking leave to surrender before Yerwada jail in Pune instead of giving himself up in the TADA court here. He did not assign any reason for withdrawing the application.

Dutt will now appear in court, from where he will be taken into custody and handed over to the jail authorities. The prison where he will be housed is not known yet.

The actor will have to serve the remaining three-and-half years of a five-year sentence under the Arms Act for illegal possession of an AK-56 rifle at his Bandra bungalow about a month before the March 12, 1993 bomb blasts in the city in which 257 people were killed. He has already spent about a year-and-a-half in jail as an undertrial.

The Arthur Road jail authorities have received an anonymous letter claiming a death threat to Dutt. Vinod Lokhande, inspector general of prisons (south region), confirmed the letter threat. "We have taken cognizance of the letter received two days ago and will provide adequate security to Sanjay Dutt," said a top officer of the Arthur Road jail.

The one-page handwritten letter was sent to the jail by post and did not contain any name or signature of the sender.

Dutt's last day of freedom was marred by a group of 20 people from the Hind Rashtra Sena who shouted slogans against him outside his house. A witness said the right-wing activists jumped on the car of actor Ajay Devgn who had come to meet him.

Asked about the mood at the residence, producer-director Mahesh Bhatt, who also went there, said: "Manyata, his wife, who has braved the crisis with great fortitude, looked suddenly vulnerable and frail. Sanju looked powerless and guilt-ridden. His eyes revealed that he had been crying."

Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Sanjay-Dutt-to-surrender-today-jail-gets-threat-letter/articleshow/20076389.cms