MUMBAI (The Thursday Times) — Mumbai Police have raised the security of at least two Bollywood stars to the Y-plus category and stepped up protection for others, officials said, almost a month after gunmen fired at actor Tiger Shroff’s car, as detectives held a man with two pistols they suspect is linked to the attack.
The cover of one leading actor has been raised from the X category to Y-plus and that of another from Y to Y-plus, police sources said, as part of a wider review by several agencies of the threat to film personalities. The actors have not been named.
The measures range from extra personnel to protection for some family members and associates of actors seen as targets, officials said. Security has been strengthened at several homes, including Shroff’s, and a bulletproof structure has been put up at one actor’s residence. Stars travelling outside Mumbai have been asked to share their routes with the police in advance, and protection is raised further during fan events.
A senior police officer said security reviews are carried out from time to time and that the police stay in touch with people facing threats. Officials said the review is still under way and the arrangements could change once it is complete.
Arrest in Agripada
The Mumbai Crime Branch arrested Ganesh Landge, a driver from Thane, outside an industrial estate in Agripada after a tip-off that four men would arrive there with weapons, the police said. Officers recovered two country-made pistols and 19 live cartridges from him, while the other three escaped.
The police told a court they suspect Landge is linked to the Shroff case and need his custody to establish the link. He has been registered in a separate case at Antop Hill police station and remanded in police custody until 16 November.
The October attack
Three men on a motorcycle fired at least three rounds at Shroff’s car near a football ground in Juhu on the evening of 18 October. Shroff escaped serious injury, but his driver and a bystander were wounded.
An audio message attributed to two foreign-based members of the Lawrence Bishnoi gang claimed responsibility, warning Shroff against working with Salman Khan, according to the police. Thirteen people have been arrested so far. One of the accused has told a special court he was 17 at the time of the shooting; the police say he is 19, and the court has ordered an inquiry into his age.
The gang has been linked to the firing outside Salman Khan’s building in Bandra in April 2024, the killing of former Maharashtra minister Baba Siddique in October that year, and shots fired at filmmaker Rohit Shetty’s Juhu home in February this year.
Deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, who visited Shroff at home a day after the shooting, said at the time that the government would not tolerate gang wars in Mumbai.
