Juhu. The shooting of actor Tiger Shroff on the evening of October 18 has brought a familiar fear back to Hindi cinema. Shroff was returning from football practice at Pushpa Narsee Park when three men opened fire at point-blank range. He was released after a check-up; his driver and bystanders were injured. Within two hours, two men identifying themselves as Lawrence Bishnoi gang members claimed responsibility. By the next day, the Mumbai Police Crime Branch said all three alleged gunmen had been arrested from Kota, Rajasthan.
The attack and the arrests
Mumbai dailies reported that the shooters told interrogators they had originally targeted another star and switched after seeing the security around that person. A note attributed to the gang carried an open threat: “Anyone who works or supports Salman Khan will be our next target.” The investigation is still in its early stage, and police have not confirmed a motive in court.
A pattern that is no longer hidden
The Juhu shooting is the latest in a visible series of gang-linked intimidation across the industry.
- May 2022: The Bishnoi gang kills Punjabi singer-politician Sidhu Moose Wala.
- April 2024: Gunfire is directed at Salman Khan’s Bandra residence, the gang’s first major Mumbai strike.
- October 2024: Baba Siddique is shot dead; Anmol Bishnoi is later named the main accused.
- September 2025: Two men on motorcycles fire at Disha Patni’s family home in Bareilly.
- February 2026: A threat is issued to Ranveer Singh, followed by a threat mail to Ayush Sharma and gunfire at Rohit Shetty’s Juhu house.
Why the industry is quiet
Lawrence Bishnoi has been in jail since 2015 and in Ahmedabad’s Sabarmati Central Jail since 2023; Anmol Bishnoi is now in Tihar Jail after being deported from the United States in November 2025. Yet the threats have not stopped. A 2023 Union Home Ministry order under Section 268 restricts Lawrence Bishnoi from being moved out of Sabarmati for questioning, a point Mumbai Police officers say weakens their investigation.
Bollywood has survived a violent underworld period before. In the 1980s and 1990s, figures such as Dawood Ibrahim, Chhota Rajan and Arun Gawali were linked to extortion and killings in the city; the encounter-era policing that followed brought relative calm. Now, private security is hardening again. A technician on the set of Golmaal 5 told Frontline that the production was guarded “like a fort”, and a senior producer said the old culture of outspokenness has faded because “nobody wants to bet on their lives.”
The question behind the fear
The attack has also become political. At a Shiv Sena Dussehra rally on October 20, Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Raut pointed at the Home Ministry and Sabarmati Jail to claim that the Union Home Minister is “the real Lawrence Bishnoi”, drawing a sharp political response. Separately, the family of Baba Siddique has argued that the gang’s responsibility claims may be a “smoke screen” over a dispute around slum rehabilitation projects in Bandra. Whether the motives are religious revenge, real estate or something else, the visible result is the same: an industry with enormous cultural influence has turned inward, and the question now is who really stands to gain from that silence.
Source: Frontline
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