The total number of people arrested in the Tiger Shroff attack case reached 10 on Wednesday, after the Mumbai Police took into custody two men who had allegedly helped other accused acquire the weapons that were used to target the actor.
Hours after the Gujarat Police arrested a Lawrence Bishnoi gang member in Gujarat, the Mumbai Police arrested Samir and Jatin.
Four people, including two women, were arrested from Haryana and Delhi on Tuesday. The ninth accused, Jatin, had gone to Amritsar with other accused Kunal and Sumit to procure weapons.
Samir, the tenth accused, is friends with Jatin and had stayed with the three shooters in Mumbai’s Andheri.
He and the three shooters kept changing their accommodations to avoid being traced by the police.
Investigators are probing where the accused stayed, how frequently they changed lodges and whether the arrangements were made to evade police surveillance.
Police are also investigating Samir’s links with the other accused in the case.
Shroff’s BMW car was attacked by two shooters, while the third waited on a motorcycle just meters away. The actor’s driver was injured, and a stray bullet struck one of the dozens of fans who were waiting outside the compound of the football ground to get a glimpse of the action star. The actor escaped unharmed because the gun of the second shooter jammed.
The three shooters had been arrested in Rajasthan’s Kota. They were attempting to escape to Nepal via Delhi.
Anil Pandit, a member of the Lawrence Bishnoi gang, claimed responsibility for the murder attempt. He said in an audio clip released on social media that those close to actor Salman Khan would be killed. He claimed the gang had warned Shroff about this, but he didn’t heed.
READ | 3 Innovas, 3 Routes, 3 States: How Tiger Shroff’s Shooters Were Brought To Mumbai
Police sources have told NDTV that the gang wanted to target another high-profile personality. As they couldn’t because of heavy security, they improvised.
“After checking out areas frequented by this individual, the shooters realised that they would not be able to get to the person. This was when they shifted their target to Tiger Shroff after learning – through reels posted by his fans – that the actor did not have police protection,” the source said.
The shooters have told the police that they intended to spread fear within Bollywood by killing Shroff.
The Mumbai Police will carry out the technical analysis of the audio released by the Lawrence Bishnoi gang to match it to their voice bank. The exercise would be conducted to figure out who actually issued the message.
