Mumbai: A Mumbai court on Wednesday remanded the three key accused in the firing at Bollywood actor Tiger Shroff's car to police custody till October 31, after the Crime Branch told the magistrate that the weapons used in the attack were yet to be recovered and that the accused had destroyed two mobile phones.
The accused — Rehan alias Sukka from Sonipat in Haryana, Ritik Kurmi alias Roshan, originally from Begusarai in Bihar and living in Mumbai, and Phool Singh from Haryana — were produced before the magistrate after being brought to Mumbai from Kota in Rajasthan early on Wednesday.
The Crime Branch, which is investigating the case, had sought 14 days of police custody for a detailed investigation. The police told the court that custody was needed to recover the weapons used in the crime, and that the accused had destroyed two mobile phones. The custody was also required to unearth the conspiracy and the motive behind the incident, the police said.
Defence lawyers Ajinkya Mirgal and Satyabrat Joshi opposed the remand, arguing that custody was not required for the recovery of weapons. They told the court that the accused had already been interrogated during the transit remand and did not need to be in police custody further.
The defence pointed out that the police team had not brought the accused to Mumbai on Monday, the day of their arrest, and had stayed back in Kota to question them through the night. The accused were questioned again during the 16-hour drive from Kota to Mumbai, the lawyers said, so no further custody should be granted.
After hearing both sides, the court remanded the three to police custody till October 31.
The trio had been nabbed by the Kota City police from a train on Monday, a day after the firing. They were handed over to the Mumbai Police, which formally arrested them and produced them before a magistrate in Kota, which granted the Mumbai Police a 48-hour transit remand to bring them to the city.
The case relates to the firing at Shroff's car in Mumbai's Juhu area on Sunday evening, October 18. At least two men fired gunshots at the actor's vehicle before speeding away on a motorcycle. The actor escaped relatively unhurt, while his driver and a bystander were injured in the attack.
The police have registered a case of attempt to murder and under the Arms Act.
The investigation has widened considerably since the initial arrests. Five more people were arrested in the case, four of them in Delhi and one in Haryana, taking the total number of arrests to ten. The five are being brought to Mumbai for production before a court.
Four of the five — two men and two women — were arrested by the Delhi Police Special Cell late on Tuesday evening. They were identified as Kunal, 21, from Rohana village in Haryana's Sonipat district; Sumit, 19, a resident of Kharkhoda in Sonipat; Radha, 23, from Sitapur in Uttar Pradesh; and Babita, 23, of Azamgarh in Uttar Pradesh. The fifth accused arrested on Wednesday was identified as Ankit, picked up from Sonipat in Haryana with the assistance of the Haryana Police.
Addressing a press conference, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Detection) Raj Tilak Roshan said the investigation had revealed a network involved in procuring firearms, transporting them to Mumbai, and providing logistical support to the shooters.
According to Roshan, Kunal and Sumit travelled to Amritsar in Punjab to procure the weapons. The firearms were subsequently handed over to the two women, who allegedly transported them to Mumbai by train and delivered them to the three shooters.
"The three shooters carried out the firing on October 18 as part of the planned conspiracy," Roshan said. He added that Ankit had stayed with the three shooters in Mumbai and provided logistical assistance in the run-up to the attack.
According to the police, the tenth accused allegedly helped the first three suspects arrange weapons on the instructions of gangster Anil Pandit, who is said to be associated with gangster Lawrence Bishnoi. The accused are suspected of supplying a pistol and ammunition to the shooters.
The Bishnoi angle has added a serious dimension to the investigation. The Lawrence Bishnoi gang has been linked to a string of extortion and shooting cases targeting Bollywood figures, and investigators are now examining whether the firing at Shroff's car fits the same pattern of intimidation.
The case has once again raised questions about the security of film industry personalities in Mumbai. The firing took place in Juhu, a neighbourhood home to several prominent actors, and the brazenness of the attack — gunshots fired at a moving vehicle on a Sunday evening — has unsettled the industry.
Shroff, one of Bollywood's leading action stars, has not made a public statement on the incident. The police have not commented on whether the actor had received any threats before the attack, and the motive remains under investigation.
With the three main accused now in police custody till October 31 and five more suspects set to be produced before a court, the Crime Branch is expected to use the coming days to trace the full chain of the conspiracy — from the procurement of the weapons in Amritsar to the orders that allegedly came down through the gang network.
The speed of the investigation has been notable. The firing took place on Sunday evening; by Monday the three main suspects had been traced to a train in Kota and detained by the Rajasthan police; and by Wednesday morning they were produced before a Mumbai magistrate. The Crime Branch took over a case that began as a local police matter and has since grown into a multi-state investigation spanning Haryana, Punjab, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Delhi.
Investigators will be focusing on several gaps in the coming days. The weapons used in the Juhu firing have still not been recovered, and the two mobile phones the accused allegedly destroyed could have held crucial evidence about the conspiracy. The police have told the court that custody is essential to establish the motive and uncover the full extent of the alleged plot.
The role of the women accused — Radha and Babita — has also drawn attention. According to the police, the two allegedly carried the firearms by train from Punjab to Mumbai and handed them to the shooters, suggesting a carefully planned division of labour designed to avoid detection. The Delhi Police Special Cell's arrests late on Tuesday indicate that the conspiracy was coordinated across state lines.
For Mumbai Police, the case is a test of its ability to dismantle the networks that supply weapons to shooters targeting high-profile individuals. The alleged link to the Lawrence Bishnoi gang, if established, would place the Juhu firing in a wider pattern of organised criminal intimidation directed at the film industry.
(Reporting based on The Hindu and The Indian Express.)