Sanjay Dutt arrives at a special court trying cases of the 1993 Mumbai bombings that killed 257 people in Mumbai, India. Photograph: Rajesh Nirgude/AP
The sentencing on Tuesday of Bollywood superstar Sanjay Dutt to six years' imprisonment has stunned the Indian film fraternity. And not entirely for the reasons one would expect. Following charges of illegal firearm possession and allegations of involvement with the terrorists who detonated bombs across Mumbai in 1993, Dutt served 15 months in prison as initial investigations took place. Out on bail since 1995 - making his case one of the longest in Indian legal history - Dutt was convicted in November last year of firearms possession but acquitted of the terrorism charges.
More extraordinary than the tale of this icon's dramatic downfall is Bollywood's reaction, which provides an insight into the celluloid legend. Some film producers are aghast at being left with incomplete Dutt vehicles, placing them in serious financial jeopardy (analysts estimate losses of more than 500m rupees, or £6m, which by Indian standards is hefty indeed). However, there is also a contingent that remains protective of a star who divided his youth between bail and the big screen, unconvinced of anything other than "Sanju Babu"'s foolishness.
Bollywood's finest scribes would struggle to write a love story of the kind that brought Dutt's parents together. His mother, Nargis, was the hazel-eyed beauty of 50s cinema, and made cinematic and indeed personal history as the star of Mother India. Sunil Dutt, an accomplished actor in his own right, played her son in that film, and saved her life when during shooting she was trapped by a fire raging out of control. They were married soon afterwards.
Many believe the pressure of living up to his socially conscious, superstar parents - a Muslim mother and Hindu father - affected Dutt. He became hooked on heroin and cocaine, an addiction that worsened when his mother died three days before his first film was released in 1981.
The first Bollywood star to openly admit to drug addiction and rehab, Dutt acquired something of a bad boy reputation - one that would be hard to shake and that would help make other allegations stick. After the riots of 1993, Dutt accompanied his father, by now a Congress MP, to affected slums in Mumbai, many of which were populated by Muslims. Those who believe that Dutt was targeted and set up claim it started here, in what was interpreted as a pro-Muslim gesture.
Dutt's initial arrest in 1994 was marked by the release of the film Khal Nayak, in which he plays a terrorist. Attesting to the sheer power of the celluloid image in India, and aided by shots from the film that conveniently fitted the real life story, Khal Nayak cemented the star as a Mumbai bomber in the public eye. Bizarrely, it also paved the way for his long-awaited post-release stardom.
Is Dutt a dangerous criminal, or merely a misguided fool? It's impossible to tell. With this latest development, life and fiction have become irretrievably intermingled in a way that could perhaps only happen in Bollywood.
