Sanjay Dutt on the 1993 weapons case: 'The mistakes were mine'

Sanjay Dutt has taken full blame for the weapons he kept at home in 1993. "The mistakes were mine," he told Shekhar Suman on Shekhar Tonite.

His heart warned him against it, he said, but his mind talked him into believing that holding the weapons for a week could do no harm. He admitted he had no idea how serious the fallout could be, and said every person should know the laws of the country they live in.

Sunil Dutt, his father and a veteran actor, went into shock when police put handcuffs on Sanjay in front of him. "With tears in his eyes, he said, 'What are you doing with my son?'" Sanjay recalled. He hugged his father tight and called the handcuffs "just a procedure", even though, in his words, "it was killing me from the inside." That was how he carried himself through a trial that ran for 24 years.

Prison did not break him either. When an official taunted him that he would get no cigarettes inside, Sanjay said he shot back, "Sir, I can at least get a bidi here." His calm left the people around him puzzled.

Investigators probing the Mumbai serial bomb blasts of March 12, 1993 linked the actor to an AK-56 rifle, a pistol and ammunition, and he was arrested that April. A special court convicted him under the Arms Act in November 2006. It acquitted him of TADA charges, and he was never convicted of taking part in the bombings.

In March 2013, the Supreme Court upheld the Arms Act conviction but cut his sentence from six years to five. He surrendered to serve the rest of his term at Yerawada Central Jail in Pune and was released in February 2016 after earning remission for good conduct.