How Devendra Fadnavis sought to reassure a Bollywood rattled by Lawrence Bishnoi gang

Maharashtra CM Devendra Fadnavis shared how the police were in hot pursuit of the masterminds in the attack on actor Tiger ShroffWhile the attack on actor Tiger Shroff allegedly by members of the Lawrence Bishnoi gang has led to a creeping sense of fear in Bollywood and the Mumbai business world, Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis has said the gang was only trying to “scare” and that its masterminds would be nabbed soon.“The Lawrence Bishnoi gang is only trying to scare [film personalities],” said Fadnavis during an informal interaction with the media. He added that those involved in the shooting on Shroff had been arrested.Fadnavis, who is also the home minister of Maharashtra, lauded the professionalism of the Mumbai police for arresting the alleged shooters within 15 hours of the attack in a multi-state operation.Shroff had a providential escape on the evening of October 18 as two suspected contract killers fired at his car at Juhu in suburban Mumbai, injuring the actor’s driver and a bystander. The two alleged shooters and their accomplice—identified as Hritik Kurmi aka Roshan Fighter (22), Rehan Rahisuddin alias Sukka (18), and Phool Singh (18)—were arrested at the Kota railway station in Rajasthan.According to the police, Shroff had a close shave as the weapon with Rehan had jammed or he was unable to cock it. But the five rounds fired by Singh penetrated the car and hit Shroff’s driver. The actor had instinctively ducked backwards in his seat and averted the trajectory of the bullet. He was, however, injured by glass shards.After the shooting, Anil Pandit, a gangster said to be based in the United States, claimed responsibility, threatened the film industry, and asked actor Salman Khan to apologise to his “brother” Lawrence Bishnoi and the Bishnoi community.Khan is accused of killing a blackbuck, an animal revered and protected by the Bishnoi community, in Rajasthan in 1998.So far, 13 people, including Pandit's sister-in-law, have been arrested across states, including Haryana and Rajasthan, for their alleged involvement in the Shroff attack case.Fadnavis said the gang was operated from abroad by around four people. Of these, one (Harichand Jat aka Harry Boxer) had been arrested overseas (in the US) and another arrest was in the offing.The attack on Shroff is seen as part of the Bishnoi gang’s expanding footprint in Mumbai, a city where the underworld once had a free run before a series of police “encounters” in the 1990s and 2000s, coupled with the gentrification of criminal gangs and their shift to businesses like real-estate, brought things under control.In April 2024, two men on a bike had fired at Khan’s residence in Bandra (West), and this was traced to the Bishnoi gang. In October that year, former minister and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Baba Siddique was shot dead outside his office in Bandra (East), with the Bishnoi gang claiming responsibility for the assassination.Lawrence Bishnoi’s brother Anmol has been named prime accused in the case. Siddique was close to Khan, although his kin have alleged that a builder-politician nexus played a role in the murder.On February 1 this year, shots were fired at director Rohit Shetty’s residence in Juhu by alleged members of the Bishnoi gang. Later that month, actor Ranveer Singh’s manager was threatened by a man who identified himself as gangster Harry Boxer, a Bishnoi associate, and sought an amount of Rs 20 crore. Gangsters associated with Bishnoi also fired at actor Disha Patani’s family residence at Bareilly in Uttar Pradesh in September 2025.While Lawrence Bishnoi is lodged at the Sabarmati Jail in Gujarat, brother Anmol was deported from the US last year and is being kept at the Tihar Jail in Delhi. An order by the union ministry of home affairs bars investigating agencies from taking the Bishnoi brothers out of jail.Also speaking on other issues, Fadnavis informed that the five ongoing river-linking schemes in Maharashtra would be completed in roughly eight years, helping alleviate drought and water scarcity. This includes a World Bank-funded project to divert around 35 TMC (thousand million cubic feet) of flood waters from districts like Sangli and Kolhapur to the Ujani dam in Solapur, from where it can be supplied to districts such as Dharashiv (formerly Osmanabad), Beed and Latur in drought-affected Marathwada. The second pertains to 80 TMC water being taken from the Ulhas river basin to Nashik and further. The Wainganga-Nalganga project in Vidarbha is at the land acquisition stage and will cover rainfall-deficient areas.Subscribe to India Today Magazine- Ends