Police claim to have foiled Bishnoi gang’s second attack on Salman Khan, 4 held

Mumbai: The Navi Mumbai police have arrested four members of the Lawrence Bishnoi gang for planning an attack on actor Salman Khan. According to police, the Bishnoi gang had planned to attack Salman Khan's car at Panvel. They have registered a case against 17 gang members, who had allegedly done a recce at Panvel in February this year.

The police have also named Lawrence Bishnoi, his brother Anmol Bishnoi, Sampat Nehra, and Goldy Brar as conspirators in the case.

The actor has been on the radar of the gang after he shot a blackbuck during the shooting of a movie in Rajasthan in 1998. Blackbucks are considered sacred by the Bishnoi community.

According to the police, the arrested accused were part of the conspiracy to kill the actor while the actor was en route to his farmhouse. The conspirators had planned to procure automatic weapons including AK-47 from Pakistan to use in the crime. They had done a recce of Salman Khan’s house, farmhouse and the route he travelled between the two, a police officer said.

The four arrested accused have been identified as Dhananjay alias Ajay Kashyap, Gaurav Bhatia alias Nahvi, Wasim Khan alias Wasim Chikna and Rizwan Khan alias Javed Khan.

In a statement, the Navi Mumbai police informed that the Bishnoi gand had planned to use minors to carry out the attack on Khan. After the attack, the attackers had planned to escape to Sri Lanka via boat from Kanyakumari in Tamilnadu.

The police claimed to have received a tip-off around eight months ago that the Bisnnoi gang members were planning the attack on Khan. Thereafter, few police officers and police informants infiltrated the gang and its social media groups, where messages were exchanged. The police arrested the four men after getting confirmation about their plan through their social media chats.

The four men were arrested a few days ago from different cities. Kashyap was arrested from Panvel, Bhatia was arrested from Gujarat, Wasim was arrested from Sambajinagar in Maharashtra and Rizwan was arrested from Bengaluru in Karnataka.

This was the second planned attack on the actor foiled by the police. Earlier in April, there was a firing outside Khan’s residence in Mumbai. The Bishnoi gang had immediately claimed responsibility for the firing and said it was “a trailer”.

The Mumbai police have arrested two alleged Bishnoi gang members — Vicky Gupta and Sagar Pal — who are suspected shooters. The police had also arrested Sonu Bishnoi and Anuj Thapan, who allegedly delivered weapons to the shooters. However, Thapan died in a police lock-up. The police have claimed that he committed suicide.