Tiger Shroff shooting: Sonipat youth held in Indore; firearms recovered from Surat

Mumbai/Indore: A 22-year-old man was arrested in Indore on Saturday in connection with the shooting incident involving Bollywood actor Tiger Shroff, while Mumbai police recovered two firearms from Surat that were allegedly used to target the actor's car, officials said.

Police sources also claimed that the assailants who fled after opening fire at Shroff on October 18 were receiving real-time updates from their 'handlers' about the police probe via news channel coverage, enabling them to alter their escape routes.

A team of the Mumbai Crime Branch, with help from local police, nabbed Pranjal Thakran (22) in a joint operation in Indore, said Additional Deputy Commissioner of Police Rajesh Dandotia.


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This has taken the number of persons arrested in the case to 11.

Thakran, originally from Sonipat, Haryana, had come to Indore five days ago for the treatment of his paralysed brother, he said.

Police suspect that he provided logistical support and financial or operational assistance to the shooters and key conspirators involved in the attack.

The suspect was being interrogated by a crime branch team, and formalities to arrest him and bring him to Mumbai on transit remand were underway, said a Mumbai police official.

On Friday, police carried out targeted operational raids at a hideout in Surat and recovered two firearms allegedly used in the shooting and ten live cartridges, an official said. Before that, police tracked the logistical trail of the weapons provided to the assailants.

The recovered weapons and ammunition have been sent for forensic examination and ballistic testing to match them with the empty shell casings retrieved from the crime scene.

At least two men fired gunshots at Shroff's car in Mumbai's Juhu area on the evening of October 18 before speeding away on a motorcycle. The actor escaped relatively unhurt, while his driver and a bystander were injured.

According to Mumbai Police, five to six rounds were fired at the car. A motorcycle, allegedly used by the shooters, was found abandoned in Andheri.

The three men directly involved in the shooting were receiving real-time updates from their 'handlers' about the police investigation via news channel coverage, enabling them to alter their escape routes, police sources said.

The trio, Phool Singh (18), Rehan Rahisuddin Ansari (18), and Rithik Mahto (22), were taken into custody from a train in Kota on October 19. They are currently in police custody until October 31.

As media outlets broadcast news updates, unseen handlers were relaying the information directly to the shooters through encrypted Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) messaging applications, sources in the Crime Branch said.

According to the sources, at one point during the escape, when news channels aired visuals of the attack, one of the primary suspects received an urgent instruction on his mobile phone: "Tumhare chehre aa gaye hain, nikal jao waha se" (Your faces are out, get out of there).

The Mumbai Police have registered a case under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and the Arms Act for attempt to murder and other offences. Eleven persons have been held so far from Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Haryana.

Police have named gangster Anil Pandit, who had claimed responsibility for the firing on Tiger Shroff, as a wanted accused in the case. Pandit is an alleged associate of the Lawrence Bishnoi gang believed to be operating from the US. He had claimed responsibility for the October 18 attack on the actor in a social media post.