New Delhi: Fleeing the scene of crime outside the JVPD Grounds near Pushpa Park in Juhu after firing several shots at Bollywood actor Tiger Shroff Sunday evening, the trio of assailants first took a train to Kandivali Station in the northern suburbs of Mumbai before rushing to Surat in Gujarat via road, ThePrint has learnt.
They were then traced to the first general compartment of the Pune-Jaipur express train by a joint team of Surat and Mumbai Police, after which they were detained by the Kota Police.
By early Monday, the Mumbai Police Crime Branch traced the suspects’ exit route and tipped off their counterparts about their movement by train towards Rajasthan.
“We worked on the inputs and traced the trio’s movements via train,” a Gujarat Police officer told ThePrint. “There are only two general compartments in the particular express train and the suspects were caught by surveillance cameras at the station rushing to board the first general compartment towards the engine,” the officer said.
The Mumbai Police had traced the trio’s bike—identified as Rehan and Phool Singh from Haryana’s Sonipat, and Hrithik Kumar from Bihar’s Begusarai—to Andheri Railway Station. “They took a train to Kandivali and booked a taxi from a ride-hailing application to Surat before boarding the train in Surat to go to Jaipur,” a Mumbai Police officer said. “The call made to the cab driver was the first major breakthrough,” the officer said.
The three men had already left Surat station by the time the police developed the inputs, however, so the information was further relayed to the Kota Police. “We were informed about their presence in the particular train in the morning, shortly before the arrival of the train, and our team took only 15 minutes to identify and nab the trio,” Kota Superintendent of Police Tejaswini Gautam said at a press conference on Monday.
According to Kota SP, the trio intended to go to Delhi via road before attempting to flee to Nepal to evade arrest after the crime. According to preliminary probe, Gautam said that Rehan was the main accused among the trio, who was in touch with a US-based operative of the jailed gangster Lawrence Bishnoi who has purportedly taken responsibility for the attack on Shroff.
“Rehan was in touch with Anil Pandit, and he was the one who recruited the other accused from the same district and reached Mumbai around 10 days back and also roped in Hrithik, who was already living in Mumbai,” she further said.
According to the probe conducted so far, the trio was promised Rs 35,000 and opportunities to settle abroad as allurement for the crime.
Addressing a press conference Monday, Mumbai Crime Branch Deputy Commissioner of Police (Detection) Raj Tilak Roushan said that the crime branch had rushed 20 special teams for the probe, who meticulously scanned all surveillance footage from the crime scene. He said that the bike used in the crime was recovered from Andheri West station, and from the owner of the bike, investigators gathered information about their plan to move to Surat.
Roushan further said that the trio waited outside the football ground, where Shroff was a regular visitor, for nearly 15 minutes, waiting for the perfect opportunity to strike. The weapon used in the crime has not yet been recovered, but would soon be after interrogation of the accused trio, he further told a press conference on Monday.
Asked about the social media post taking responsibility for the attack in the name of jailed gangster Lawrence Bishnoi, referring to a “previous warning”, Roushan said that the Mumbai Police had no initiation of any threats raised in any form by the actor or his family.
(Edited by Nardeep Singh Dahiya)
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