Tiger Shroff shooting: handler guided shooters by watching TV news, say police

New and startling details are emerging every day in the investigation into the shooting at actor Tiger Shroff. It has now come to light that the shooters and their main handler were in constant contact. The handler watched news on TV channels and passed on every development to the shooters accordingly.

According to police, when the shooters' faces appeared on TV, a message was sent telling them to flee at once. News channels had aired videos of the shooters captured outside the park by paparazzi and vloggers. Soon afterwards, a message came warning Rehan. It said clearly: "Your face has come out, leave from there quickly."

Mumbai Police are conducting a thorough search to find who was sending the shooters the TV news updates. Investigators suspect that the person guiding the suspected accused, Rehan Ansari, through a communication app was someone else. Police strongly suspect that Anil Pandit, a Bishnoi gang gangster hiding in the United States, or Ankit Khatak and Sameer Khatri, who were recently arrested in Sonipat, may have linked the shooters with Pandit. CCTV footage had shown Rehan constantly busy on his mobile phone.

Investigating officers said the accused were in touch with one another on a particular app using Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP). This system could not be traced easily. But now that the accused are in police custody, police have collected evidence of some chats and conversations from both sides.

The investigation also found that the accused were not sent only photos and videos. They were given minute-by-minute updates on how close the police had come to them. The handler kept a constant watch on TV and alerted Rehan as soon as news flashed. They were immediately told that police had traced their bike in Andheri. The handler also knew that they had travelled by train.

Police said these constant warnings made the accused shooters change their mode of travel and route repeatedly. They were first on a bike, then went by train and later by cab. They wanted to catch a bus from the Surat bus station, but as they were late, they finally decided to take another train. Even so, at the special request of Mumbai Police, Kota Police stayed alert and took them into custody on the moving train itself.