Mumbai: A fourth accused has been arrested in the firing case outside Bollywood actor Tiger Shroff’s Juhu residence, with Mumbai Police picking up a man named Sameer from Haryana’s Sonipat district. Investigators allege Sameer acted as the bridge between the three shooters and Anil Pandit, a US-based operative of the Lawrence Bishnoi gang, according to police — the contact who allegedly coordinated the attack from abroad.
The shooting took place around 7 pm on Sunday, October 18, outside a football club in Juhu as Tiger Shroff was leaving the venue. Two rounds were fired; the actor escaped injury, but his driver and an autorickshaw driver were injured in the attack.
The first three arrests came on Monday morning. Acting on a tip-off, police nabbed the three shooters from a train at Kota railway station in Rajasthan as they were planning to flee to Nepal. They were produced before a court and sent to 48-hour transit remand, giving Mumbai Police custody to bring them back for detailed interrogation. Police said the accused had been living in Mumbai for nearly a month before the attack.
One of the arrested men, Rehan, was allegedly lured into the plot with the promise of being settled abroad along with Rs 35,000. Phool Singh, described as Rehan’s associate, is the second shooter named so far, with the third still formally unnamed. Investigators revealed the trio had earlier attempted to shoot a businessman in Amritsar, but the pistol failed.
The communication trail reads like a manual of modern organised crime. The shooters allegedly communicated with Anil Pandit through the Jaggi app, a messaging platform that requires no user ID, making the conversations harder to trace. Money, police said, moved through a shop that was used to order and withdraw cash — a low-tech hawala-style channel layered over an encrypted digital one. It is a pattern investigators say they are seeing increasingly in gang-coordinated hits.
The Mumbai Police response has been massive: 20 special teams of the Crime Branch were formed to track the accused, and the breakthrough in Kota came within hours of the Sunday night firing. DCP Roushan said investigators also recovered a yellow Pulsar 220 motorcycle near Andheri station, a bike that changed hands three times before the attack and is suspected to have been used in reconnaissance or the getaway.
Sameer’s arrest widens the conspiracy. Police suspect he was in contact with more people in Mumbai, suggesting the network of facilitators may extend beyond the four in custody. His role, as alleged by investigators, was specific and crucial: he facilitated contact between the shooters on the ground and Anil Pandit, the overseas handler. The arrest in Sonipat indicates the network’s reach into Haryana, a state that has repeatedly surfaced in gangland investigations.
The Lawrence Bishnoi gang’s alleged footprint has loomed over Bollywood before. The gang was linked by police to the firing outside Salman Khan’s residence in 2024 and to the murder of NCP leader Baba Siddique — cases that reshaped celebrity security protocols across Mumbai. Tiger Shroff’s case now follows that pattern: a high-profile target, shooters allegedly run through handlers, and an overseas operative pulling strings via encrypted apps.
For now, the transit remand window is critical. Investigators are expected to press the three shooters on how they were recruited, who financed their month-long stay in Mumbai, and whether other targets were on the list. Police have not yet disclosed whether they have recovered the weapons used in the Juhu firing. With Sameer’s custody likely to follow, Mumbai Police are signalling that this investigation is far from over.
