Police raid Sanjay Dutt's cell at Yerwada jail

Jail officials search the cells of convicts, including that of Sanjay Dutt to check on the use of drugs, mobile phones, weapons or objectionable material by the inmates.

A joint team of Pune Police and Yerawada jail officials have searched the cells of convicts, including that of Bollywood actor Sanjay Dutt to check on the use of drugs, mobile phones, weapons or objectionable material by the inmates inside the prison.

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The search operation was carried out on Wednesday covering 25 barracks of the prison, which houses around 2,500 convicts of various categories. The jail kitchen and the hospital wards also came under scrutiny to detect presence of undesirable items, Prison Superintendent R Dhamne said.

The search did not yield any objectionable material in the jail premises and was of routine nature, carried out at the instance of prison authorities themselves, he said.

The surprise checks are conducted to ensure that the inmates, including women convicts, did not indulge in any irregularities and drug abuse.

The convict in the country-wide fake stamp scam Abdul Karim Telgi is also lodged in the jail.

Meanwhile, Dutt, sentenced to six years rigorous imprisonment under the Arms Act in the 1993 Mumbai blasts case, was back to his assigned cane work after a two-day respite from manual labour over the week-end on account of Diwali holiday for prisoners. His appeal against the TADA court is expected to come up for hearing in Supreme Court on November 25.