Sanjay Dutt has lived many lives within one, rising from a star kid to one of Bollywood’s most powerful performers, then falling into the darkest chapter of his life, only to rebuild himself again. His story has always carried a mix of turmoil and transformation and he often says that hardship taught him more than fame ever did. That same reflective spirit guided him when he recently opened up about the 1993 case that changed everything for him.
During an interview, Sanjay Dutt spoke candidly about the period that he calls one of the hardest phases of his life. He said that he was convicted under the Arms Act even though no gun was ever recovered from him. Revisiting the tense atmosphere after the Babri Masjid demolition, he remembered how his family was living under constant threat. According to him, accusations about him possessing a weapon continued even though authorities could not prove it and he still does not understand why it took twenty-five years for the system to reach a conclusion that ultimately led to his conviction without the recovery of a gun.
Sanjay Dutt also expressed that it shouldn’t have taken so long for the authorities to establish that he had no connection to the TADA or b*mb bl@st case, a delay that kept him trapped in uncertainty for years. Still, he chose to face the situation with dignity and patience. He said that he treated the experience as a hard but meaningful lesson, spending his time in jail reading religious texts, meditating and educating himself. He became deeply interested in understanding the law and reading extensively to make sense of the situation he had been in.
Sanjay Dutt recalled requesting the courts repeatedly to speed up the proceedings, saying he had seen too many inmates left waiting endlessly for their cases to move forward. Inside prison, he tried to stay occupied in positive ways. He had shared earlier on The Great Indian Kapil Sharma Show that he earned wages, started a small radio station called Radio YCP and even created a theatre group in which he directed plays with m*rd*r convicts as the actors.
After completing his five-year sentence, Sanjay Dutt was released in 2016. His long and complicated legal journey was later dramatised in Rajkumar Hirani’s film Sanju, with Ranbir Kapoor portraying his life. Even now, Sanjay Dutt speaks of that chapter not with bitterness but with the acceptance of someone who has learned to carry his past without letting it define his future.
