Rakesh Maria, the IPS officer who worked on the 1993 Mumbai blast case that involved Sanjay Dutt’s conviction for illegal possession of arms, recently revisited the investigation. Rakesh’s investigation led to the actor serving jail time. In a new interaction with Desi Studios, Rakesh Maria recalled how his probe led him to Sanjay Dutt, and also recalled the emotional moment between Sanjay and his father, veteran star and politician Sunil Dutt, when Sanjay fell at his father’s feet and asked for his father’s forgiveness, allegedly after admitting to his crime.
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During the interaction, Rakesh recalled that Sanjay Dutt’s name came up in the case through Hanif Kadawala, proprietor of a famous restaurant in Bandra, and Sameer Hingora, then President of the Indian Motion Picture Producers’ Association (IMPPA). “They refused the allegation against them, but they asked to speak to me and the first thing they told me was, ‘Why don’t you arrest big people?’ I asked them, ‘Which big people have I not arrested?’ They tell me, Sanju Baba, I thought what does Sanjay have to do with this?”
Rakesh recalled Hanif and Sameer telling him that the perpetrators wanted a quiet place to take out the weapons from the car’s cavity, and they had suggested Sanjay’s house for the same. These were the weapons used in the 1993 Mumbai blasts. “They come to Sanjay Dutt’s house. Sanjay had already received the call. Sanjay told them to park the car there and unload the things,” he claimed.Story continues below this ad
Rakesh said that Sanjay kept some of the weapons for himself, but later returned most of them to the terrorists who were planning the attacks. He said that when they learned about Sanjay’s involvement, they wanted to bring him in for questioning, but the actor was then shooting for a film in Mauritius. They decided to wait for him to return to India, and when he landed a few days later, Rakesh recalled picking him up right at the airport and taking him in for questioning.
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Rakesh recalled holding Sanjay in a room at the Mumbai Crime Branch that had an attached bathroom. However, they had taken off the bathroom door. He placed two constables inside the room and instructed them not to give cigarettes to the actor, and did not to allow him to call anyone. Rakesh recalled confronting Sanjay and said, “He sat down in the room 2:30 am and at around 8 am, I entered the room. I asked him, ‘Will you tell me your story or do you want me to tell your role?’”
He added, “Sanjay told me that he is innocent and he’s not involved in this. The pent-up emotions, stress of the last few days, suddenly got through me and he was sitting on the chair in front of me. I just walked up to him and he had long hair at that time. I just gave him a slap and he toppled a little back and I caught hold of his hair and pulled him up. I asked him, ‘If he would talk to me like a gentleman, or should I…?’ Then he asked to speak to me alone. Then he narrated the whole thing to me. He told me, ‘I made a mistake, please don’t tell my father.’ I told him, ‘How can I not tell your father? You have made a mistake. Be man enough’.”
Rakesh recalled that by the evening, Sunil Dutt came to meet him, along with Rajendra Kumar, Mahesh Bhatt, Yash Johar and politician Baldev Khosa. “They all told me that Sanjay is innocent and he could not do these things,” he said.
Recalling the first time Sanjay faced his father after being accused of such a grave crime, he said, “Sanjay Dutt is brought into the room, he sees his father, he howls like a child and goes and falls down at Sunil Dutt’s feet and tells him ‘Papa galti ho gayi mere se (Dad, I made a mistake)’. I wouldn’t wish this thing to happen to any father. Sunil’s face went pale.”
Sanjay Dutt finished his sentence in 2016.
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