Bihar Police struggle to verify identity of Tiger Shroff shooting suspect amid denials by family

The Bihar Police is trying to verify the antecedents of a Begusarai man arrested in Rajasthan for allegedly firing at actor Tiger Shroff, after an elderly couple they zeroed in on said the accused was not their son.

Three people, including a juvenile, who allegedly fired at Shroff in Mumbai on 18 October, were nabbed from a train at the Kota station in Rajasthan a day later. Kota Police revealed the identities of two: Ritik alias Roshan (22) from Begusarai in Bihar and Rehan from Sonipat in Haryana.

The Mumbai Police, has taken custody of the three, and said Ritik hailed from Dumri village under the jurisdiction of Singhaula police station in northern Bihar.

Based on the lead, police identified Ram Babu Mahto, who runs a grocery store, as the accused's father, according to Begusarai Superintendent of Police (SP) Maneesh. Ritik had been working for a food catering agency in Delhi and shifted to Mumbai three months back.

However, Mahto's wife told the local media that the photograph shown to her by the police was not of her son.

"I want the police to take action against the guilty. But the photograph is not of my son. I have urged police to ascertain the identity of the person in the photograph and also trace my son, with whom we have lost contact for some time," she said.

The shooting targeting Tiger Shroff on a busy Sunday evening in Mumbai's upscale Juhu was captured on video. The clip showed gunshots being fired at close range at his car. While the 36-year-old, who is actor Jackie Shroff's son, escaped relatively unhurt, his driver and a bystander were injured.

A purported audio clip in which Anil Pandit, a 32-year-old US-based gangster from Panipat and an alleged associate of the Lawrence Bishnoi gang, is heard claiming Tiger Shroff was attacked because he ignored warnings not to work with superstar Salman Khan was circulated widely across several media platforms.

Pandit can be heard demanding an apology from Salman Khan to the Lawrence Bishnoi gang and community. Salman Khan was allegedly involved in the shooting of a blackbuck, sacred to the Bishnoi community, in 1998.