Attack on Tiger Shroff: 11th accused sent to police custody till Oct 31

Investigators are probing his links to a Lawrence Bishnoi gang operative and another accused. Thakral’s family disputes the allegations.

The Mumbai police crime branch has arrested Haryana resident Pranjal Thakral, 22, in connection with the attack on actor Tiger Shroff on October 18, taking the total number of arrests in the case to eleven.

Seeking custody of Pankaj Thakral till October 31, the crime branch told the court that it needed to establish his exact role in supplying weapons to the shooters

Sources in the crime branch said Pranjal was in touch with Anil Pandit, an operative of the Lawrence Bishnoi gang who claimed responsibility for the attack on the actor. He had supplied a country-made pistol to the assailants and also provided logistical support and financial or operational assistance, investigators said.

The 22-year-old was arrested on Saturday from Indore, subsequently brought to the city and produced before a court on Sunday, which remanded him in crime branch custody till October 31.

Thakral’s family members refuted the allegations of his involvement in the attack on Shroff. His uncle Suresh Kumar said that Thakral was with his brother at a hospital in Indore and the police had taken him for questioning but later said that he had been arrested.

“We will visit Mumbai soon with a lawyer,” he said.

As reported by HT earlier, two gunmen shot at Shroff’s car on October 18, as he was leaving from Juhu after playing football at a club. Though the actor escaped gunshot injuries, his driver and a vlogger were injured in the attack. The gunmen fled from the spot with a getaway biker who was waiting for them. The trio abandoned the bike in Andheri, took a local train to Kandivali, followed by a taxi to Surat.

At Surat, they dumped two pistols – a Turkish Zigana and a country-made pistol called ‘katta’ – in the bushes along the railway tracks, and took a train to Delhi, only to be intercepted and arrested from Kota railway station on October 19. On Saturday, the police recovered the two pistols along with 10 live cartridges from the bushes along the railway tracks, after one of the alleged shooters led them to the spot.

Seeking custody of Thakral till October 31, the crime branch told the court that it needed to establish his exact role in supplying weapons to the shooters and investigate how he came into contact with Pandit. The agency also invoked section 111 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, which deals with organised crime, in its submissions before the court.

According to investigators, Thakral was also in contact with Kunal, one of the 10 accused arrested earlier. His and Kunal’s names had surfaced earlier too in connection with a firing incident in Panipat, which investigators are examining as part of the current probe.

According to Thakral’s family, he was pursuing an engineering degree and was staying in Indore solely to take care of his brother during his treatment.

Of the 11 accused arrested so far, eight are residents of Sonipat district.