Sanjay Dutt to walk out of prison with Rs 450 as salary

PUNE: As a semi-skilled worker, actor Sanjay Dutt earned a salary of Rs 38,000 over a five-year prison term but, having spent most of it on daily use items, he would be taking home a much smaller amount when he is released from Yerawada Central Prison on Thursday. The state prison department is currently busy calculating the salary it owes the convict.

Prison sources told TOI that Dutt, who prepared paper bags during his five-year term at the prison, received the salary of a 'semi-skilled worker', which is currently set at Rs 50, per working day.

"The actor should have received at least Rs 38,000 but he has already spent much of the amount on buying daily use items from the jail canteen. The balance to be paid to him is just Rs 450," a source said.

"We have counted the number of days the actor has spent in the jail after finalising his fixed date of release (FDR), after which we then calculated his salary at the rate of Rs 35, per day, which was enhanced to Rs 50 with effect from September 1, 2015," sources said.

The salary has been calculated after excluding 256 days of leave on parole and furlough granted by the Pune divisional commissioner and deputy inspector general (western region) of the prisons department on numerous occassions since 2013, officials said. According to sources, "Dutt's salary excludes the period of leave of 256 days on parole and furlough which was granted by the Pune divisional commisisoner and deputy inspector general (western region) of the prisons department on numerous occasions ever since he was lodged in the jail in 2013,"

"We have not counted the period of 18 months, that is 548 days, which he had spent in the jail since his arrest while finalising the FDR and salary since he was an undertrial prisoner then, and not a convict," the sources added.

Dutt, popularly known as Munnabhai after his film character, was confined to a high security cell for security reasons. After he took on the role of a radio jockey on the prison's FM radio channel to entertain inmates and reduce stress levels, the actor turned quite popular among fellow inmates. He soon became popular among the inmates after he performed as RJ twice in a week on the prison's FM radio for entertaining inmates for reducing their stress level.

"As a film personality, he shared his experience with the inmates while appealing them to give up crime and live a reformed life after undergoing imprisonment. The inmates listened to his jokes and dialogues with rapt attention. Sanju Baba will always be remembered as an obedient prisoner," a jail official said requesting anonymity. The state government has issued instructions to prison officials asking them not to make a statement on Dutt's release since he is a high risk prisoner.

The actor, who is in his mid-fifties is serving a five-year rigorous imprisonment term for possessing and destroying a prohibited weapon, an AK-56 rifle, just before the 1993 Mumbai blasts which killed 257 people after the Supreme Court had upheld in conviction. His conviction was under the Arms Act. A special trial court which had tried Dutt along with 122 others in the 1993 Mumbai blasts case.