PTI    
     
MUMBAI, Nov 29: Stating that even the "soul" of Mahatma Gandhi would have wanted actor Sanjay Dutt to be freed in the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts case, Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray on Wednesday said he had then helped a "patriotic" father (Sunil Dutt) avoid continued incarceration of his son in the case.
    
"While Sanjay was in prison, Sunil Dutt came to me after making futile efforts with Congress leaders to secure his son's release. I helped him from a humanitarian angle and also to avoid largescale monetary losses to Bollywood as the industry had then invested a lot in him," Thackeray, editor of party mouthpiece `Saamana', said in an editorial.
 
"Baalasaheb, app kuchh karo... Aap hi ab rasta nikal sakte ho (Balasaheb, do something. Only you can find a way out of this)", Sunil Dutt had then told me, Thackeray said.
 
Sunil Dutt and his wife Nargis were family friends and the former used to come to the Thackeray house even after the death of Nargis, he said.
 
"Today, Sanjay is popular as Munnabhai but back then, he was a spoilt brat. He knew gangsters like Abu Salem very well", Thackeray said.
 
"Gandhigiri has helped Sanjay", he added.
 
"Sanjay is a criminal but not a terrorist. He would be punished for his crime", the editorial said.