Mumbai, Apr 30 (PTI) The Mumbai police on Thursday filed a 1624-page chargesheet against 17 accused in a special MCOCA court in the filmmaker Rohit Shetty house firing case, an official said.
At least five rounds were fired at the first floor of Shetty’s nine-storey house in Juhu area at 12.45 am on February 1, one of which struck the glass of a gym inside the building.
While 15 persons have been arrested in the case, Shubham Lonkar and Arzoo Bishnoi, part of the Lawrence Bishnoi gang, were shown as wanted accused, the official said. Lonkar and Arzoo Bishnoi had taken responsibility for the incident through a social media post, he added.
Incidentally, Lonkar is also wanted in NCP leader Baba Siddique murder case as well as the firing at actor Salman Khan’s residence in Bandra.
The accused were working on the directions of Lonkar and had recced Shetty’s house on three occasions before the firing, the official said, adding some of them had consumed alcohol in a nearby area before the alleged shooter headed out to execute the plan.
Alleged shooter Deepak Sharma and three other accused had come to Juhu on the day of the incident, and fled in an autorickshaw to Kalyan in neighbouring Thane district after the firing, the official said.
They held a meeting at another accused’s house in Kalyan, before escaping to the northern states by train, he said. Kalyan served as a meeting point for the accused as one of them had lived in the town for almost two years, he added.
The accused were in hiding in a place in Haryana that had been provided by one Ritik Yadav, who too has been arrested, the official said.
Besides Sharma and Yadav, others held so far are Sunny Thakur, Sonu, Jatin Bharadwaj, Vishal Thakur and Vishnu Kushwah, Aditya Gayaki, Siddharth Yenpure, Samarth Pomaji , Swapnil Sakat, and Asaram Fasale, the official said.
“The accused are in the 20-25 age group. Kushwah is a cousin of shooter Deepak Sharma. The accused, nabbed from Uttar Pradesh and Haryana, knew each other but didn’t have direct connection with the gang members held from Pune,” he said.
Shubham Lonkar’s brother Pravin, who is behind bars in another firing case, was taken into custody for allegedly being part of the conspiracy as well as weapon supply, money transactions and brainwashing the accused persons, the official said.
The stringent Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) has been invoked in the case. PTI DC BNM
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