Two individuals from Punjab, Subhash Chander (37) and Anuj Thapan (32), were remanded to police custody until April 30 by a Mumbai court on Friday in connection with the shooting incident outside Bollywood actor Salman Khan’s residence in Bandra.
Presented before a magistrate’s court, Chander and Thapan were apprehended by the crime branch on Thursday for their alleged involvement in providing weapons and cartridges to the shooters.
According to police statements in court, the arrested duo played significant roles in the crime, supported by technical evidence.
Interrogation is deemed necessary to ascertain the source of the weapons provided by Chander and Thapan to the previously apprehended shooters, Sagar Pal and Vicky Gupta, stated the police.
It was revealed in court that Chander and Thapan purportedly travelled to Panvel on March 15 to deliver two country-made pistols and 38 live rounds to Pal and Gupta.
Pal (21) and Gupta (24) were earlier remanded to police custody until April 29 by the same court.
The police have also implicated incarcerated gangster Lawrence Bishnoi and his younger brother Anmol Bishnoi as wanted individuals in the case.
Advocate Ajay Dubey, representing Chander and Thapan, refuted the allegations, asserting that his clients had no involvement with the Bishnoi gang, did not provide weapons to the shooters, nor visited Panvel.
Claiming the charges to be baseless, Dubey argued that Chander and Thapan were falsely implicated in the case.
Gupta and Pal allegedly fired outside Khan’s residence at the Galaxy Apartment in Bandra on April 14 and subsequently fled the scene on a motorcycle. They were apprehended on April 16 from Mata No Madh village in Gujarat’s Kutch district.
During a subsequent search operation to recover the weapons used in the firing, the crime branch team retrieved two pistols, magazines, and bullets from the Tapi river in Gujarat.