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| India-Pakistan |
| Bollywood's Dutt barred from polls |
| 2009-04-01 |
| A top Indian court declares Bollywood actor Sanjay Dutt ineligible to contest elections due to his conviction in the 1993 Mumbai bombings. The Supreme Court in New Delhi on Tuesday refused to suspend his conviction in connection with the 1993 Mumbai blasts case, PTI reported. "We are not inclined to suspend his conviction," a Bench headed by Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan said. Dutt was convicted under the Arms Act and sentenced to six years in jail in July 2007 by a court for buying weapons from bombers who attacked the port city of Mumbai. He is the most high-profile of 100 people convicted in connection with the lethal bombings. The actor, who found fame playing gangsters, has said the weapons were necessary in order to defend his family during the 1993 Hindu-Muslim riots. He is out on bail at present and wanted to stand as a Samajwadi Party candidate in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh. India's parliamentary elections, the world's largest exercise in democracy, begin in less than three weeks. Under Indian electoral laws, anyone who is given a jail sentence more than a period of two years is not eligible to contest elections. Around twelve bomb blasts rocked several sites across Mumbai in April 1993, killing 257 people and wounding over 700 others. |
| Posted by:Fred |