I waited six hours outside jail to meet Sanjay: Manyata

Sanjay Dutt's wife Manyata touched many a heart at the Hindustan Times Leadership Summit Saturday as she recalled her travails when the Bollywood actor was behind bars.

Dutt was convicted for illegal arms possession in the run-up to the 1993 serial bombings in Mumbai was sent to the high-security Arthur Road jail in that metropolis last year - the last of the four occasions he was jailed.

"Initially, I wasn't allowed to meet him. Then I called up Satish (Maneshinde, Dutt's lawyer) and I said I want to meet Sanjay. I just drove and I waited for six long hours outside the Arthur Road jail and finally I got to meet him for 10 minutes," Manyata said.

She was speaking during an interactive session, "Leadership Lesson from Munnabhai" - titled so after Dutt's iconic character from the hit films "Munnabhai MBBS" and "Lage Raho Munna Bhai" - as the actor recounted his trials and turbulations.

Manyata, who was not married to Dutt at that time, recalled: "It was a thin net between both of us and another net barrier after three feet of space so that one can't even touch or feel a person. There was a small yellow bulb in the closed room. I couldn't see anything so I asked him to stand beneath the light, like under a spotlight, so that I could at least see him.

"I tried my best to be strong but I couldn't and I collapsed and Satish had to take me back home," she said.

Manyata took the opportunity to slam the media. "Thanks to the press, I couldn't go to the jail. I was mobbed and they were writing funny things about me. I was asked to stay back at home and not to accompany him to the court.

"There should be a code of conduct for the media because they are given unnecessary rights. They can write and destroy a person - they can make you what they want to make you. They come with a pre-set mind if they are anti- you.

"A line should be drawn and there should be a law where you can sue a person for writing s*** about you without knowing you. People are written off like villains because of them," she said.

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