Ten held over Tiger Shroff shooting as actor's team rejects reported statement

Mumbai police have detained or arrested 10 suspects over the shooting at Bollywood actor Tiger Shroff's car in the city's Juhu area on October 18, the BBC and the Hindustan Times reported. The Hindustan Times said those held were picked up in Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Haryana.

Shroff, 36, was leaving a football ground in his BMW on the Sunday evening when shots were fired, according to the BBC. He was not hit by any bullets. The BBC said his driver was wounded, along with a vlogger who had come to film him. The Hindustan Times described the second injured person as a bystander. The outlets also differ on the attackers: NDTV reported that two men fired at least five to six rounds at the car, while the Hindustan Times said there were three assailants.

The Hindustan Times reported that Anil Pandit, whom it described as a close aide of gangster Lawrence Bishnoi, claimed responsibility in a social media post. The BBC said a screenshot of a post purportedly made by an alleged Bishnoi gang associate circulated online, and that in a separate audio recording a man identifying himself as Anil Pandit said Shroff was targeted over his alleged links to actor Salman Khan. According to the BBC, Mumbai police have not verified the claims or established that the gang was behind the attack, and investigators are still trying to determine who ordered it and why.

Bishnoi, who has been in jail for years, has publicly threatened Khan over a 1998 poaching case involving blackbucks, the BBC reported. Mumbai police have linked the Bishnoi gang to gunfire outside Khan's home in April 2024 and to the murder of politician Baba Siddique six months later. The BBC said police reportedly increased security outside the homes of Khan and filmmaker Rohit Shetty, whose house was also targeted earlier this year.

D Sivanandhan, who took charge of Mumbai's Crime Branch in 1998, told the BBC the latest violence was not a return of the city's old underworld. "This is not the Mumbai mafia which we know in the last 60 years," he said. "This is something else."

NDTV, citing sources, reported that Shroff told the Crime Branch he was "in deep shock". His spokesperson told the Hindustan Times: "This news is completely untrue. Tiger has not made any such statement." The actor's team earlier warned that social media pages were circulating fabricated stories and AI-generated videos falsely attributed to him, and said it could take legal action.

The Hindustan Times said three suspects were picked up in Kota within hours of the attack. It named four suspects as Kunal, 21, and Sumit, 19, both from Haryana's Sonipat district, and Radha and Babita, both 23, from Uttar Pradesh. The BBC said investigators were tracing alleged weapon deliveries through several states and examining payments allegedly made to the attackers.

On Saturday, a 22-year-old man was arrested in Indore in connection with the shooting, PTI reported, as cited by the Hindustan Times. Mumbai police also recovered two firearms in Surat that were allegedly used to target the actor's car, officials said.

Sources: BBC News, Attack on actor Tiger Shroff is dark reminder of Bollywood's gangster past; NDTV, 'Still In Shock': What Tiger Shroff Told Cops On Assassination Bid; Hindustan Times, Tiger Shroff's team denies any statement about actor expressing shock over assassination attempt in Mumbai.