Film actor Sanjay Dutt left his Bandra residence this afternoon to surrender before the designated TADA court here to serve a three-and-a-half year sentence in the 1993 Mumbai bomb blasts case.
Sporting a white kurta and jeans, 53-year-old Dutt waved to the crowd before getting into his car outside Imperial Heights building at Pali Hill in suburban Bandra.
Fans and admirers of Dutt as well as media personnel had converged outside the actor's building since early today.
Dutt, with a red 'tilak' on the forehead, held his wife Manyata's hand as he walked out of the house to go to the Designated Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act (TADA) Court in South Mumbai.
Celebrities from Bollywood visited the actor since last night. Among those who visited Dutt were actors Salman Khan, Abhishek Bachchan, Ajay Devgn and directors David Dhawan, Sanjay Gupta and Apporva Lakhia (with whom Dutt worked in 'Janjeer' remake), Rajkumar Hirani and Milan Luthria.
Raj Kundra, husband of actor Shilpa Shetty, and producers Vashu Bhagnani, Bhushan Kumar and Rahul Agarwal also paid a visit to offer moral support to the actor.
A large posse of policemen had been deployed outside Dutt's residence since last night in the wake of an anonymous letter alleging threat to his life.
While Dutt had told TADA court earlier that he faced threat to his life from fundamental groups, Arthur Road Central Jail authorities received an anonymous letter a few days back, saying Dutt would be harmed if he was lodged there.
The Supreme Court had on March 21 had upheld his conviction in the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts, which it had said was engineered by underworld don Dawood Ibrahim and others with the involvement of Pakistan's ISI.
However, the apex court had reduced to five years the six-year jail term awarded to Dutt by a designated TADA court in 2006 while ruling out his release on probation, saying the "nature" of his offence was "serious".
The actor was convicted by the TADA court for illegally possessing a 9 mm pistol and an AK-56 rifle, which were part of a consignment of weapons and explosives brought to India for coordinated serial blasts that killed 257 people and injured over 700 in 1993. He has already undergone imprisonment for one-and-a-half-years.
The apex court had on May 14 refused to grant him more time to surrender.
On May 10, the Supreme Court had dismissed Dutt's plea seeking review of its judgement on his conviction and the five-year jail term.
