MUMBAI, 7 February 2007 — The police had a hard time controlling groups of Muslim protesters, the majority of them women, who played hide and seek with the police outside the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (TADA) court at Arthur Road prison, here yesterday morning.
The 150-odd protesters, all relatives of Muslim convicts in the 1993 Mumbai bomb blasts, were protesting and staged angry demonstration raising slogans against the preferential treatment being given to Bollywood star Sanjay Dutt. The police detained 20 Muslim women and five men for defying prohibitory orders proclaimed near the TADA court premises. There was heavy police deployment outside the court and the police seized large numbers of banners from the protesters.
As soon as Sanjay Dutt arrived at the court premises he was heckled by the family members of the TADA convicts. Dutt appeared in the TADA court following the expiry of the extension of time granted to him to surrender and the hearing of his plea seeking relief under the Probation of Offenders Act. The actor was accompanied by a battery of lawyers representing him, led by noted criminal lawyer R.R. Manohar, who argued on the applicability of Section 4 of Probation of Offenders Act before the designated judge P.D. Kode.
The defense team had concluded its arguments and the prosecution team representing the Central Bureau of Investigations (CBI) led by Special Public Prosecutor Ujwal Nikam argued making detailed submission opposing any leniency to the actor. The judge then extended the bail of Dutt till today. The court received a 16-page intervening application, the contents of which were not revealed, but Judge Kode set it aside for arguments at a later stage.
The court received a similar application seeking to intervene against Dutt’s application on Jan. 18, but it was dismissed by Judge Kode.
Zebunissa Shaikh, a relative of one of the TADA convicts said that all convicts should be treated alike. “It’s injustice and open discrimination against the minority community. Why TADA should be applied only to Muslims? The law of the country is equal for all citizens. Then why special consideration for Dutt,” Sheikh asked.
“The law should be applicable to all and there should be no benefit granted to anyone because of their status. Our relatives have been in jail since 1995 and have not been granted bail even once,” one of the protesters said.
On Jan. 25, 69 convicts had given a handwritten plea to Judge Kode seeking parity with Dutt. The seven-page application was filed by dismissed customs officials Mohammed Sultan Sayyed — one of the convicts — and signed by 68 others. They had jointly urged the designated court to acquit them under TADA.
Meanwhile, speaking to the media, veteran filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt extended his support to the protesters outside the TADA court yesterday. “I am not physically present to join the protesters, but my support goes to them,” Bhatt, the most vocal in all of Bollywood said.
“Sanjay Dutt is from my fraternity, he is my brother, let us not rob Sanjay Dutt of the benefit that he has got, but I cannot turn a blind yet to the others and I stand with them,” Bhatt said
Amaresh Mishra, the Mumbai unit secretary of Bollywood star Raj Babbar’s Jan Morcha party said that his party too will protest outside the TADA court. “Our intention is not to gather crowd, but to send a message that why there should be disparity when it comes to the law. There should not be two laws for a nation,” Mishra added.
