What happened in Juhu
On 18 October 2026, gunfire hit actor Tiger Shroff’s car in Mumbai’s Juhu neighbourhood. Shroff escaped unhurt, while two other people were injured. Police later arrested three bike-borne suspects at Kota railway station after following a CCTV trail, and investigators are examining a social media post that purportedly claimed responsibility on behalf of the Lawrence Bishnoi gang.
A shadow since the 1960s
The underworld’s relationship with Hindi cinema is not new. News18 traces it to the 1960s, when figures such as Haji Mastan moved in film circles and acted as alternative financiers. By the late 1980s and 1990s, that relationship had hardened into coercion: criminal networks allegedly pushed on casting decisions, demanded overseas distribution rights and extracted money from producers and stars.
The 1990s and early 2000s turned that pressure into a body count.
- 1994: Producer Javed Riyaz Siddiqui was killed in June; producer Firoz Sarfraz Khan was targeted weeks later.
- 1997: Producer-director Mukesh Duggal was shot dead in his Andheri office. Filmmaker Rajiv Rai survived an attack outside his Tardeo office. T-Series founder Gulshan Kumar was killed outside a temple in August.
- 1999–2002: Adlabs founder Manmohan Shetty and filmmakers Rakesh Roshan and Lawrence D’Souza survived attempts; actor-producer Dinesh Anand was killed in 2001.
Why Roshan’s shooting still matters
Rakesh Roshan’s January 2000 shooting is an especially clear example. He was fired at outside his Santacruz office soon after Kaho Naa… Pyaar Hai launched Hrithik Roshan. Roshan later said the underworld wanted Hrithik to act in a film financed by its associates, and that he was attacked after refusing to change his son’s shooting schedule. In April 2026, Ram Gopal Varma offered a similar account, linking the attack to pressure from Chhota Shakeel’s network.
That sequence explains the real business risk: the underworld was not only demanding money, but attempting to control talent and production schedules.
The recent phase
After a quieter spell, the threat returned to the headlines. In April 2024, gunmen fired outside Salman Khan’s residence in Bandra, and Mumbai Police alleged Lawrence Bishnoi’s involvement. In September 2025, shots were fired outside Disha Patani’s family home in Bareilly, and in February 2026 at Rohit Shetty’s Juhu residence. A chargesheet in the Shetty case named 17 accused.
The Tiger Shroff incident on 18 October is the latest reminder. The motive is still under investigation, but the target list and the alleged Bishnoi link place it inside a recurring pattern rather than an isolated incident.
What it means now
For an industry built on stars and release schedules, security is an operational question as much as a personal one. Past responses were practical: after the 1999 attempt, Manmohan Shetty reportedly travelled with an armed guard and installed CCTV to screen visitors. Today’s threats, however, arrive with social media claims and smaller, mobile attackers, which makes deterrence harder.
The firing at Shroff’s car left him unhurt, but it has revived the same anxiety the industry faced in the 1990s: how to protect creative and commercial figures when any high-profile address can become a target.
Source: News18
Comments