Accused in Salman Khan house firing case dies by suicide in Mumbai Police custody
Anuj Thapan, an accused arrested in the Bollywood actor Salman Khan house firing case, died in a hospital after he tried to commit suicide in Mumbai Police custody on Wednesday.
The deceased Anuj Thapan, 32, hanged himself inside the toilet of the lock-up using a bedsheet. He was rushed to the state-run GT Hospital, where he was declared dead during treatment, news agency PTI quoted an official as saying. An accidental death report will be registered at Azad Maidan police station in south Mumbai, the report PTI added.
Who was Anuj Thapan?
Anuj Thapan and another accused, identified as Sonu Subhash Chander, were arrested from Punjab by the Mumbai Police for allegedly supplying guns to shooters Vicky Gupta and Sagar Pal, who are already arrested for firing multiple rounds of bullets outside Salman Khan’s Galaxy Apartments in Bandra on April 14.
Lawrence Bishnoi connection
The Mumbai Crime Branch has said gangster Lawrence Bishnoi and his brother Anmol Bishnoi have been declared wanted accused in connection with the firing case. Anmol Bishnoi claimed responsibility for the firing outside Salman Khan’s residence in a Facebook post following the attack.
According to the Mumbai Crime Branch, before the firing went down, the shooters had reached Salman Khan’s house four times. They had also staked out the actor’s farmhouse, the Crime Branch said, adding that since he hadn’t visited his farmhouse over several days, they planned to execute the firing outside his plush Galaxy Apartments.
The sleuths stated earlier that they fished out the pistol from the river on April 22 and also found the footprint of one of the arrested shooters, Vicky Gupta, while he was making a getaway from Mumbai to Gujarat’s Bhuj. The Crime Branch said the shooters chucked the firearm into the Tapi River near Surat while making their escape.
What Mumbai Police said about Anuj Thapan
The Mumbai Police has alleged that Anuj Thapan and Sonu Subhash Chander had come to Panvel (in Raigad district near Mumbai) on March 15 to hand over two country-made pistols and 38 live rounds to the shooters Sagar Pal and Vicky Gupta.
Besides these four accused, the police have declared jailed gangster Lawrence Bishnoi and his younger brother Anmol Bishnoi as wanted accused in the case.
Advocate Ajay Dubey has submitted in court that Chander and Thapan had not provided weapons to the other accused or visited Panvel, and they had no connection to the Bishnoi gang. All charges against them are baseless, and they were falsely implicated in the case, he claimed.
Vicky Gupta and Sagar Pal were arrested from Mata No Madh village in Gujarat’s Kutch district on April 16. The crime branch team later recovered two pistols, magazines and bullets from the Tapi river in Gujarat during a search operation to recover weapons allegedly used in the firing.
Lookout circular issued against Anmol Bishnoi
A lookout circular (LOC) was also issued against Anmol Bishnoi, the younger brother of jailed gangster Lawrence Bishnoi. An official also said police were likely to take custody of Lawrence Bishnoi, who is currently lodged in a jail in Sabarmati in Gujarat, and was also contemplating invoking the stringent Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) in the case.