PUNE/MUMBAI:

A beaming Sanjay Dutt walked out of the Yerawada Jail early on August 23, 21 nights after a TADA court sent him to prison for possessing weapons given by the accused in the 1993 Mumbai bombings. The actor reached his Bandra residence in Mumbai with hordes of fans waiting outside the actor’s house.

Dutt, 48, was wearing a white striped shirt and blue jeans and sported short cropped hair as he stepped out of the prison gates at 7.15 am accompanied by his lawyer Satish Mane Shinde, who had arrived some two hours earlier.

Visibly happy that he was out of jail, Dutt shook hands with the policemen outside the prison complex and even hugged a constable.

He then waved to the small media contingent that had been camping outside the prison gates since overnight before speeding off in a car to the airport to catch a flight to Mumbai.

At the Pune airport, his brother in law and actor Kumar Gaurav joined him and they took off to Mumbai after a minor tiff with journalists who insisted on speaking to Dutt.

Pune jail officials said that although they start functioning only from 10 am, they decided to let go Dutt early in the morning since otherwise they would have to deal with huge crowds.

Security outside his house has been beefed up. Dutt reached there at around 8:30 am Dutt’s sister Priya Dutt welcomed his brother. Several of Dutt’s colleagues from the film fraternity were also present at the Santa Cruz Airport to receive the actor.