New Zealand offers Bollywood star Sanjay Dutt visa reprieve after US, UK say no
Sanjay Dutt walks out from Pune’s Yerawada Jail on February 25, 2016, after completing his prison term. (Archival photo)
“We were aware of character issues, and these were balanced in the overall assessment of the application," says INZ.
Immigration New Zealand (INZ) granted a limited short-stay visa to Sanjay Dutt last month, diverging from the tougher stance previously taken by the United States and the United Kingdom over the Bollywood actor's criminal conviction.
Jock Gilray, Director Visa at INZ, told Awaaz Dutt was permitted to enter New Zealand for only seven days to attend an event titled 'World and US – Bollywood Royalty Sanjay Dutt in Auckland – the Man, the Myth, the Magic'.
He said immigration officials were fully aware of the actor’s character issues while they exercised a special direction to let him come onshore.
“We were aware of character issues, and these were balanced in the overall assessment of the application. When considering these types of issues, we look at a range of factors including the seriousness of an offence, the number of offences and how long ago the event or events occurred.”
Dutt served a five-year prison sentence for his involvement in the 1993 Mumbai blasts. He was convicted under the Arms Act for possessing illegal weapons and was granted bail multiple times throughout his sentence before being released in 2016.
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Dutt's New Zealand visa expired on February 14, 2026, INZ's Gilray said, adding that as far as they were aware the actor never travelled. Sources told Awaaz the actor had to cancel his trip because the visa came through only a few days before the event was to take place.
Dutt's criminal history has complicated travel to western countries in the past. In 2020, after being diagnosed with lung cancer, Dutt said he had planned to travel to the United States for treatment but was denied a visa, forcing him to seek care in Dubai instead. He later said filmmaker Rakesh Roshan helped connect him with a specialist doctor following the US rejection.
More recently, he revealed that a UK visa refusal led to his removal from the film 'Son of Sardaar 2', calling the decision disappointing and suggesting it was linked to his decades-old conviction.
While the visa granted to Dutt was limited in duration and ultimately unused, the decision underscores New Zealand’s case-by-case approach, one that allows discretion even where past convictions exist.
For Auckland’s sizeable Indian community, Dutt's visit had piqued interest but ultimately turned out to be a bummer. Instead, the visa itself, and the contrast with the US and UK, became the bigger story.
