Tiger Shroff Firing Puts Four Young Couriers in Custody

Mumbai Police named gangster Anil Pandit a wanted accused on Thursday as a court sent four alleged gun couriers into custody until October 26. The four, two of them women who worked in Sonipat showrooms, are accused of moving a pistol to Mumbai before shots were fired at Tiger Shroff’s car in Juhu on October 18.

Pandit, 32, claimed the attack in an audio clip sent from abroad. He has not been caught. Crime Branch officers told the Esplanade Magistrate’s Court the firing was carried out at his behest.

Esplanade Court Holds the Four Until October 26

The four produced on Thursday were named as Kunal, 21, and Sumit, 19, both from Sonipat in Haryana, and Radha and Babita, both 23, from Uttar Pradesh. Delhi Police’s Special Cell had held them on October 20, the men in Sonipat and the women at New Delhi railway station, then handed them to Mumbai’s Crime Branch.

Police told the magistrate the group conspired with three accused already brought from Kota, Rajasthan, and supplied the firearm used by the shooters. Kunal and Sumit, they said, collected a pistol and 20 rounds in Amritsar on Pandit’s instructions. Radha and Babita then travelled to Mumbai and passed the weapon on.

Defence lawyers Ajinkya Mirgul and Satyavrat Joshi opposed police custody, saying there was no evidence against the four and that the arrests rested on suspicion. After hearing both sides, the court still remanded them until October 26.

The four had first been produced under Section 35 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, the clause that sets when police may arrest without a magistrate’s warrant. The three alleged shooters, produced a day earlier, are already in police custody until October 31.

Radha and Babita Carried the Pistol for Rs 12,000

Radha and Babita worked in showrooms in Sonipat and sent money home, Delhi Police told investigators. Kunal had met Radha about two months before the firing, police said, told her about his work, and persuaded her to take a weapon to Mumbai. He promised her Rs 12,000. She asked Babita to come; police said both were promised the same sum, and part of it was paid.

Kunal, recently out of Sonipat jail on bail, had been introduced to Pandit after his release, police alleged, and spoke to him on an encrypted app. Sumit went with him to Amritsar to collect the pistol.

THE BAG’S ROUTE TO JUHU

1. October 15, 2026: Kunal takes Radha and Babita to New Delhi railway station with the pistol concealed in Radha’s bag, then stays in touch by encrypted chat and relays Pandit’s instructions.
2. October 17, 2026: The women reach Dadar and check into a hotel. Around 11 am, a minor boy collects the bag near the hotel.
3. October 18, 2026: Shots are fired at Shroff’s car near Pushpa Park in Juhu around 7 pm. Pandit then tells Kunal the shooters are stuck in Mumbai and to arrange their escape. The women leave on the Dadar-Haridwar Express.
4. October 20, 2026: Delhi Police Special Cell holds Radha and Babita at New Delhi railway station and Kunal and Sumit in Sonipat.

That is the layer a court can actually touch. The women are accused of a train journey with a bag. The man who claimed the hit is not in the dock.

The Amritsar Pickup and Two Guns From Surat

Investigators tracing the pistol have been pointed to an Amritsar-based supplier who, police sources said, used a pre-arranged drop, a dead letter box, so the collectors never had to meet him. Kunal, they allege, had only recently been introduced to Pandit and was sent for that pickup with Sumit. The supplier is still being hunted.

Sources in Punjab have said the pistol and 20 rounds were likely of Pakistani origin, and that pistols used in earlier Bishnoi-linked attacks on film figures had also been traced to the state. After the April 2024 firing outside Salman Khan’s Bandra building, Mumbai Police arrested two suppliers from Sangrur. Punjab’s director general of police, Gaurav Yadav, told a briefing that counter-intelligence work since March 2022 had seen 92 terror modules busted in Punjab and 599 revolvers and pistols recovered, a haul he tied to arms pushed across the border, including by drone.

On October 23, Mumbai Crime Branch recovered two pistols that officers said had been hidden in Surat after the group fled through the city. Police have not publicly named the exact spot or who was holding the guns. The weapons are to go for forensic tests against the scene. A forensic team had already recovered seven bullet casings or projectiles from Juhu. A motorcycle said to have been used by the shooters was found abandoned in Andheri.

HOW THE GUNS ARE SAID TO HAVE MOVED

• Amritsar drop: Kunal and Sumit collect a pistol and 20 rounds on Pandit’s instructions, without a face-to-face meeting with the original supplier, police allege.
• Delhi to Dadar: Radha carries the pistol in her bag on the October 15 train; Babita travels with her; a minor takes the bag on October 17.
• Juhu to Surat: CCTV from October 18 shows an accused leaving a hotel at 4.12 pm with a blue bag, and two others leaving on a motorcycle a minute later. The firing is around 7 pm. The group then runs through Surat, where two pistols are later found hidden.

The Amritsar man is still missing. The two Surat pistols still have to be matched to the seven casings. Until those tests land, the courier file is thicker than the ballistics file.

Why the Shooters Picked Tiger Shroff

Mumbai Crime Branch has said Shroff was not the first name on the list. The three alleged gunmen, Rehan alias Sukka, 18, from Sonipat, Phool Singh, 18, from Haryana, and Hrithik Kumar alias Roshan, 22, from Begusarai in Bihar, had come to Mumbai aiming at Salman Khan, the agency said, then switched because Shroff’s security looked lighter.

They watched Instagram accounts of the actor and his fans, including reels that showed him without police cover, and surveyed the Juhu football ground for about 10 days. They had planned a try on October 11, investigators said, but Shroff did not turn up. On October 18 he left the ground in his car around 7 pm. Officers say seven shots were fired and that the gunmen meant to fire more until a pistol jammed.

Shroff drove away. His driver was hurt, as was a bystander, an auto-rickshaw driver. The actor did not take a gunshot wound. His team later released a video of burn marks on his arm. Maharashtra deputy chief minister Eknath Shinde visited him at home on October 19 and said, “Kisi ki bhi dadagiri Mumbai mein nahi chalegi.” He called the incident a major one and said the driver had been injured.

The clip of the car pulling away shows how close the window-side gunman got. A jam and a rushed exit are why the car left the ground at all. Hours later an audio clip did the work the bullets did not.

I am Anil Pandit. I am like a younger brother to Lawrence Bishnoi. What happened with Tiger Shroff today, we take responsibility for that. In the entire film industry, whoever works without aligning with us, or works with Salman Khan, will be killed. This is the first and last warning.

Anil Pandit, in an audio clip circulated after the Juhu firing

In the same clip the speaker said Shroff “was counselled, but did not understand us,” and named Harman Sandhu as sharing responsibility. Police have not said they have proved that the motive in the recording is the motive for the shooting. They have treated the clip as a claim, and they have put Pandit’s name on the wanted list.

Anil Pandit Claimed the Hit From California

Pandit is from Panipat in Haryana. Police say he left India with no serious criminal record and reached California on the dunki route, an illegal migration path, in the months after Punjabi singer Sidhu Moose Wala was murdered in May 2022. Delhi Police have said he is now wanted in 10 to 12 extortion cases involving businessmen in Panipat, Sonipat and Karnal, the demands made in the name of the Lawrence Bishnoi gang.

Investigators allege he planned the Shroff attack for about two and a half months, recruited three men, and transferred Rs 37,000 to Rehan Ansari. Contact ran on VoIP calls, “dabba calls” in gang slang, routed through chained phones and speakers so the caller’s place is hard to pin down. Sources have said Pandit learned that method while working under Randeep Malik, a US-based operative described as close to Lawrence Bishnoi and his brother Anmol, and that he was later given a run of his own.

The overseas future was part of the pitch. Ansari, 18, had studied until Class 9, then dropped out for want of money, and was learning welding in Gurugram. He had been named in motorcycle-theft and Arms Act cases in Sonipat and had spent time in jail. His mother, Shamshida, said he should be punished if found guilty, and that those who lured him should be held to account. She said he left home about 20 days before the firing after a man promised him Rs 2 lakh and a job.

Hrithik, who lived in Andheri West and worked as a Rapido rider, is alleged to have been the local hand. The three were tracked on CCTV through Surat, then pulled off the Pune-Jaipur Express in Kota on October 19, within 15 hours of the shooting, after a cab driver’s call and technical inputs. Police believe they were trying to reach Delhi and then Nepal.

Lawrence Bishnoi himself has been in Indian jails for years. Anmol, who the National Investigation Agency says ran logistics from American soil, was the 19th accused arrested in the agency’s terror-syndicate case after his arrest after deportation from the US on November 19, 2025. Pandit is the name now attached to a Juhu firing, and he is the name still outside the country.

Anyone Close to Salman Khan Is on Notice

The recording after Juhu did not dwell on Shroff’s films. It named people who work with Salman Khan, and it asked for an apology to Lawrence Bishnoi and the Bishnoi community, a grievance the gang has tied to the 1998 blackbuck case. Crime Branch has been asked to review security for other possible targets. Salman Khan, Ranveer Singh, Rohit Shetty, Aamir Khan and Ayush Sharma are among those who have already had threats on file.

Investigators also say the Juhu team watched the homes of other film stars before they settled on Shroff, including a recce of buildings linked to A-list actors. That sits beside the Crime Branch account that Khan was the first intended target.

EARLIER STRIKES TIED TO THE SAME GRIEVANCE

Shroff, on this account, was useful because he could be reached. The message that followed treated him as proof that working with Khan has a price, even when the original mark is behind heavier cover.

Ten Arrests Still Leave the Handler Free

By October 23 the Crime Branch tally was 10 people in the net across Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Delhi and Haryana. Deputy commissioner of police Raj Tilak Roshan, who has been questioning accused at the Anti-Extortion Cell, has called it a coordinated conspiracy. A third woman was brought in for questioning on October 23. Police have not given her name or said she has been arrested.

WHO IS IN THE CASE FILE

Anti-Extortion Cell officers told the court they want the four couriers to show them a forest spot where they are alleged to have practised firing, and that a panchanama has already been done at a hotel room. Sameer, police said, stayed in online contact with Pandit and passed instructions to Rehan, and may have moved money as well as weapons.

WHAT WE KNOW

• The custody orders: Four alleged suppliers are in police custody until October 26, and the three alleged shooters until October 31.
• The claim: An audio clip in Pandit’s name took responsibility and threatened anyone working with Salman Khan.
• The Surat guns: Two pistols said to have been used were recovered in Surat on October 23 and are headed for forensic tests.

WHAT IS UNCONFIRMED

• Pandit’s location: Police describe him as US-based and operating from California; they have not produced him.
• The gun’s origin: An Amritsar supplier is being hunted, and a Pakistani source has been alleged, not proved in court.
• The third woman: She was questioned on October 23; her role has not been disclosed.

The magistrate can keep Radha, Babita, Kunal and Sumit until October 26. The two Surat pistols can go to a lab. The wanted name on the court file is still Anil Pandit, and he is still not in the room.