Bollywood star returns to prison

Dutt has a huge fan following in India

Bollywood actor Sanjay Dutt, jailed for buying weapons from bombers who attacked Mumbai in 1993, has returned to an Indian prison.

Dutt, who was sentenced for six years in July by a court, was given temporary bail by the Supreme Court in August.

The court had ordered his release on the grounds that a copy of the judgement was yet to reach the actor.

Dutt is the most high-profile of 100 people convicted in connection with the blasts which killed 257 people.

The Supreme Court had said in August that as soon as the actor received a copy of the order of the Mumbai anti-terror court which sentenced him, he would have to surrender again and he would be sent back to jail.

The actor received a copy of the 43,490-page long judgement on Monday, and surrendered before the special court.

Huge interest

Dutt was then taken back to a high security prison in the western city of Pune, where he was held earlier for three weeks.

The actor's lawyers told reporters that Dutt would again appeal for bail in the Supreme Court.

The actor was cleared of conspiracy, but found guilty of illegally possessing a rifle and a pistol.

Dutt, 48, is one of Bollywood's most bankable stars, and found fame playing gangsters and anti-heroes.

His trial generated huge interest among Bollywood fans across India.

The son of a Hindu father and Muslim mother, Dutt said the weapons were necessary in order to defend his family during the Hindu-Muslim rioting of 1993 that followed the destruction by Hindu zealots of the Babri mosque in Ayodhya.

The Mumbai blasts were allegedly carried out by Mumbai's (Bombay's) Muslim-dominated underworld in retaliation for the riots, in which most of those killed were Muslims.