Mumbai: Urging a special court to acquit him in the 1993 bomb blast case, film star Sanjay Dutt on July 2 disputed the first information report (FIR) by pointing out certain discrepancies in the time and date of his arrest.

Dutt's lawyers, Rajendra Singh and Farhana Shah argued that the actor was arrested in the early hours of April 19 but in FIR, the time of arrest was shown as 23:00 hours (IST). Discrepancies in FIR doubt the veracity of the document, they pleaded.

Defence lawyers further argued that Dutt had not made a confession but merely expressed his desire to make a statement and such alleged confession was not voluntary. Besides, they said, procedure laid down under Section 15 of TADA (P) Act for recording confession was not followed in Dutt's case.

The lawyers told judge P D Kode there was no evidence to suggest that Dutt conspired with 172 others to commit terrorist acts in Mumbai between January and March 1993.

In written submissions filed on June 25, the actor denied the charge that he had accepted from other accused three AK-56 rifles, its ammunition, 9mm pistol, its cartridges and hand grenades. He also refuted allegations that he retained one AK-56 rifle and returned other weapons.

He said that the prosecution was relying upon his confession and those of co- accused. These confessions had been retracted and they could not be accepted without corroboration.

Dutt said that his confession did not disclose an offence under TADA and was also inadmissible as evidence for offence under the Indian penal code (IPC). His alleged confession was not recorded as per law and hence could not be considered as true and voluntary.

Dutt said that there was absolutely no evidence to suggest his involvement in the conspiracy to create bomb blasts. Even assuming he accepted a weapon from co-accused it was for his self-defence and not for the purpose of creating terror. At the maximum he could be tried under Arms Act and not under TADA, as he was not a terrorist.

Dutt said that the prosecution's case was that he possessed a weapon but it was not their case that he used it or harboured terrorists. The actor said that prosecution had also not proved that he had knowledge about the consignment sent by underworld don Dawood Ibrahim Kaskar to Mumbai for triggering explosions.

PTI