Mumbai Police invoke MCOCA against 11 accused in Tiger Shroff firing case; Anil Pandit declared wanted

Three assailants on a motorcycle fired at Shroff's car in the Juhu area. The actor escaped relatively unhurt, while his driver and a bystander were injured. The Crime Branch took over the case from the local police because of its seriousness. Three accused were intercepted at the railway station in Kota in Rajasthan as they tried to leave by train, and a court remanded them to police custody until 31 October. More arrests followed, and a man was detained in Indore as the eleventh suspect.

The motive police allege

Investigators say the attack was a planned criminal conspiracy and not an isolated act. The purposes they name are financial gain, asserting the gang's dominance and spreading terror. Another report adds that police allege an extortion motive and a conspiracy across states that ran between Delhi and Mumbai.

The Bishnoi gang claimed responsibility after the shooting and alleged that Shroff had been targeted because he refused to end his association with actor Salman Khan. Police have said that the original target was another prominent celebrity, and that the shooters turned to Shroff after they could not reach that person because of tight security. These are claims by the gang and the police, and a court will have to test them.

The organised crime law was passed in Maharashtra in 1999 to deal with crime syndicates, and it differs from the ordinary criminal law in several ways. Its provisions allow a confession made to a senior police officer to be used as evidence, which is not allowed under the general law, it sets stricter conditions for bail, and it prescribes higher punishments, including long prison terms and large fines, for organised crime. Cases under it are tried by a special court. For the accused, this means that getting bail will be harder and that the prosecution has more tools. For the police, it means that they have to show that the accused acted as a syndicate, which is why they have described the 11 as active members of one.

Police said earlier that the three men first arrested were all adults, and that no minor was among them, and that the motive was still being examined at that stage. In a comparable case, the 2024 firing at the residence of Salman Khan, a special court that hears cases under the organised crime law rejected the bail plea of a member of the same gang, which shows how strict the test for bail under the law can be.

In practice the new charges mean that the case will be heard by a special court, and that the prosecution will rely on evidence of the gang's earlier activity, such as earlier cases against its members, to show a continuing criminal enterprise.

The reports do not say what weapons were used, and the police have not announced a charge sheet. Anil Pandit is wanted, so the police are looking for him, and he has not been arrested. The custody of the first three accused ends on 31 October, when they will be produced before the court again, and the others will appear in turn.

The case has already become political in Maharashtra, with the opposition Congress demanding action from the state government on law and order after the shooting. For Shroff, the immediate matter is that the police are building a case against the gang, and for the city it is another instance of a gang from outside the state acting in Mumbai.