Out on bail in the Mumbai serial blasts case, actor Sanjay Dutt landed in a bit of a controversy today when the Jammu and Kashmir police provided him a red light-fitted Ambassador car on arrival at the airport. The actor was here with friend Maanyata and two others on way to Vaishno Devi.

He was provided police escort and the official car as he came out of the Jammu Airport.

Senior Superintendent of Police (Security) A S Bali admitted that the Ambassador car had been provided by his department and the escort came from the Police Control Room. “We have to provide him security as Sanjay Dutt comes from a protected family. His late father Sunil Dutt was an MP, while his sister Priya Dutt is a sitting Congress parliamentarian from Mumbai,” he said.

However, it is the VIP Ambassador which the authorities are finding hard to justify. Bali claims they were under the impression that Priya Dutt was accompanying her brother on the trip and, as an MP, she was entitled to the red beacon. While Priya Dutt was supposed to come, she reportedly backed out at the last minute as she is pregnant.

“The car was sent as we had been informed that she was arriving here for darshan at the Vaishno Devi shrine. We don’t know whether she came or not,” the SSP says.

The state Hospitality and Protocol Department claimed it had no knowledge of the “VIP treatment” extended to the actor —- recently convicted and given six years by the Special TADA Court hearing the Mumbai blasts case. “We have no knowledge about him being given an official vehicle,” said Shoba Ram, Director of the Department.

... contd.