Jailed gangster Lawrence Bishnoi's gang had planned to kill Bollywood actor Salman Khan near his farmhouse in Panvel, Maharashtra by stopping his car and shooting him with AK-47 rifles, sources said. The police in Panvel have arrested four shooters of the Bishnoi gang in connection.
The shooters were identified as Dhananjay Tapsingh alias Ajay Kashyap; Gaurav Bhatia alias Nahvi; Waspi Khan alias Wasim Chikna; and Rizwan Khan alias Javed Khan.
Sources told media that the four men had conducted a recce of the actor's farmhouse, as well as his shooting locations.
Police have recovered videos from the mobile phones of the arrested persons which gave them instructions to attack Salman Khan with other weapons as well, besides the AK-47 rifles.
The sources said that Ajay Kashyap revealed during questioning that he was in touch with an arms dealer named Doga in Pakistan, to procure the M16 , AK-47 and AK-92 rifles to carry out the alleged crime.
According to the FIR registered at the Panvel police station, one of the videos recovered by the police shows Kashyap speaking to his partner, during which he says, "Salman Khan will be taught a lesson when the weapons for the said work are received and the money will be received from Canada through (gangster) Goldie Brar."
Investigations also revealed that gangsters Lawrence Bishnoi and Goldie Brar would pay the shooters huge sums of money if they succeeded in killing the actor.
This comes more than a month after two bike-borne persons opened fire outside Salman Khan's residence in Mumbai's Bandra area on April 14.
The duo - Vicky Gupta and Sagar Pal - were later arrested in Gujarat, while a third accused, Anuj Thapan, who was arrested on April 26 in Punjab along with one other person in connection with the case, died in custody on May 1.
Mumbai Police has invoked relevant sections of the stringent Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) against all those arrested in the firing incident.
The police mentioned gangster Lawrence Bishnoi as the leader of the gang, whose men allegedly fired outside the actor's house, and added sections of the MCOCA in the FIR.
