'First and last warning': Bishnoi gang claims responsibility for firing at Salman Khan's home

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Mumbai, April 14 (IANS) Jailed gangster Lawrence Bishnoi's mafia outfit has claimed responsibility for the firing at Bollywood megastar Salman Khan’s home just before dawn here on Sunday.

Based in the US, Anmol Bishnoi, the brother of Lawrence Bishnoi, has also described the incident as the "first and last warning" for Salman Khan, ominously decreeing that the next time "the bullets won’t be fired at walls or an empty home", indicating the actor would be directly targetted.

In a post on Facebook), Anmol Bishnoi has posted a message, purportedly on behalf of other ‘Bishnoi group’ baddies like Goldy Brar, Rohit Godara, and Kala Jathari, saying "they (the gang) seek only peace, but if justice from atrocity can be achieved only through war, then war is okay".

"Salman Khan, this is just to show you a trailer, to make you understand our power and not to test our patience further… This is the first and final warning to you. Next time, the bullets won’t be fired at walls or empty homes. You consider Dawood Ibrahim and Chhota Shakeel as your gods, but we have two dogs named after them… This hint is enough and I don’t want to say anything more," Anmol Bishnoi said in the post, signed off with ‘Jai Shri Ram’.

The post came hours after the brazen firing at the sea-facing Bandra home of Salman Khan around 5 a.m. on Sunday, creating ripples in the entertainment and political world. At least two unidentified persons sporting helmets came speeding on a motorcycle, and fired at least 4 shots in the direction of Galaxy Apartment, before zooming off on the dark and deserted road.

For the past several years, Salman Khan and his family have been facing death threats from certain Punjab-based mafia groups like the Bishnoi gang. In the past couple of years, he and his father Salim Khan have been issued death threats in different ways, including in a letter to the family.

On learning of the incident, a Bandra Police team rushed to the Khan household and launched preliminary investigations, and also tightened security in the vicinity.

The police are scanning the CCTV footage in the area to trace out the shooters and check their motives and targets. More details are awaited.

Hours later a Crime Branch and Forensic Team with ballistics experts also arrived on the scene and found at least one bullet mark on the gate of the building entrance.

The firing triggered a huge political row with the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi leaders slamming the ruling MahaYuti over what they alleged "total breakdown of law and order in the state".

Senior MVA leaders like Supriya Sule, Nana Patole, Sanjay Raut, Anil Deshmukh, Kishore Tiwari and more attacked the state government with growing incidents of shootouts and firing in the public places that have created fear in the peoples’ minds.

Salman Khan, 58 lives with almost his entire joint family comprising parents, brothers and their kin at the landmark Galaxy Apartments on the picturesque Bandra sea-face area of suburban north-west Mumbai.

For several years, Salim Khan and Salman Khan have been getting death threats from the Lawrence Bishnoi gang after the 1998 blackbuck poaching incident in Rajasthan.

In mid-2022, while on a morning stroll near his home, Salim Khan found a note saying “Salim Khan…Salman Khan… bahut jald aapka Moose Wala hoga” - a reference to Sidhu Moose Wala, a Punjabi rapper, who was brutally shot dead near his home on May 29, 2022, shaking the entertainment industry.

Following the multiple threats to the Mumbai-based actor, the city police have upgraded the security cover of Salman Khan, plus issued him a permit for a gun license and last year, the actor acquired a new bullet-proof SUV as additional protection to move around.

(Quaid Najmi can be contacted at: q.najmi@ians.in )

--IANS

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