Mumbai: In the early hours of Sunday, April 14, two men rode on a bike and stopped outside Bollywood actor Salman Khan’s residence in Bandra and fired five rounds. It was still 5 am and the actor was still asleep; the roads were deserted too and no one was hurt. The men, both wearing helmets, soon fled from the scene.
For over a year, the actor has been receiving threats from jailed gangster Lawrence Bishnoi. Bishnoi’s brother Anmol Bishnoi, through a Facebook post, had purportedly taken responsibility for the firing and called it a “first and final warning”. One of the shooters has been identified as ‘Vishal’, who according to the Indian Express report was earlier arrested in a motorbike theft case.
The actor has been under the Y- Plus category security cover since last year. His security guards are with him around the clock. Bishnoi, who is named in many cases of killings and extortions in the past, has openly issued threats to the actor in the past too.
The firing while could be an instance where a gang lord is trying to exert his power and relevance in Bollywood, it also laid bare the law-and-order situation in the state. Last year, Khan had received a death threat from another Canada-based fugitive gangster Goldy Brar. A case is pending with the Mumbai police against both Bishnoi and Brar. The gangsters have allegedly been targeting the actor for his alleged involvement in the blackbuck killing incident in Rajasthan in 1998.
Soon after the incident, the state chief minister Eknath Shinde called up Khan and assured him of additional security. Khan’s family too expressed concerns. Subsequently, Shinde called an urgent meeting with Mumbai police commissioner Vivek Phansalkar and ordered an increase in security immediately. “I spoke to the police commissioner and other officers and have told them to take care of the matter. I personally spoke to Salman too and assured stern action against those involved,” Shinde told the media.
The police have formed 15 police teams to probe the incident.
While Shinde is the state chief minister, the home portfolio is handled by BJP leader and deputy chief minister Devendra Fadnavis. Fadnavis has not made any public statement on the issue so far.
Shinde’s proactive response is looked at as an attempt at damage control. With all political parties gearing up for the general elections, starting April 19, the issue soon became a talking point at the election campaigns for opposition parties. Soon after the incident, Nationalist Congress Party (Sharad Pawar) leader Supriya Sule said while the incident was “extraordinarily unfortunate”, the area where the actor resides in a busy residential area of Mumbai. “Since early in the morning, you have people on the street. It is a busy area where milkmen, school children are seen on the road right from the morning. It is a complete failure of the home department,” Sule said.
She also invoked firing incidents of Pune. In 2023 alone, Pune witnessed over 19 incidents of firing. The police attributed them to gang rivalries. As recently as on March 20, two persons, including a minor was injured in a firing incident in Pune’s Katraj region.
In February, BJP leader and Kalyan MLA Ganpat Gaikwad was caught on camera firing several at Mahesh Gaikwad, the Kalyan president of Shiv Sena (Shinde faction) over a land dispute.
Sanjay Raut, a senior leader of the Shiv Sena (Uddhav Thackeray) faction has on several occasions pointed to the “complete breakdown” of law and order across the state. After the firing incident at Khan’s residence, Congress leader Varsha Gaikwad asked, “If such an incident can happen at the house of a person with such high security, then what about the common people?”. Khan’s fans too took to social media to slam the state government over the security lapses.
The state government, however, has stayed completely mum over the incidents that the opposition has raised from time to time.
