Bollywood Star Sanjay Files Appeal in Supreme Court
Pakistan Times Wire Service

MUMBAI: Bollywood star Sanjay Dutt on Tuesday appealed to India's Supreme Court to review his conviction and sentence for illegal weapons possession in connection with the 1993 Mumbai blasts, his lawyers said.

Dutt is currently serving his jail term at the high-security Yerawada prison in the western Indian city of Pune after the sentence was announced last week.

"We have filed the application at the Supreme Court challenging the TADA court conviction and sentencing, while seeking bail for our client," Satish Maneshinde, one of Dutt's lawyers said.

The court is still to set a date for the hearing, he said. The burly star, who is from a prominent Mumbai entertainment and political family, was sentenced last Tuesday to six years' "rigorous imprisonment" for possessing illegal weapons received from plotters of the blasts in 1993, which killed 257 people and injured 800 others.

The "Black Friday" bombings were allegedly staged after the deadly Hindu-Muslim clashes.

Dutt said he bought the guns to protect his family from Hindu zealots who wanted to wreak revenge for his father's help given to Muslim victims of the riots.

Dutt was convicted last year but was cleared of the more serious charge of conspiracy in connection with the 1993 attacks.

Dutt was the highest-profile figure connected to the case, and the sentence wrapped up more than a decade of legal proceedings that have resulted in 100 convictions.●