Salman Khan house firing case: Accused attempts suicide in crime branch lock-up, dies at hospital

Mumbai: A 32-year-old man arrested in the case related to the firing outside Bollywood actor Salman Khan’s residence here allegedly hanged himself in the police lock-up on Wednesday, an official said.

Anuj Thapan, the deceased, was accused of supplying weapons to the shooters who opened fire outside Khan’s residence in Bandra on April 14 and arrested by the Mumbai crime branch.

He hanged himself with a piece of bedsheet in the toilet of the first-floor lock-up, located in the crime branch’s building inside the police commissioner’s office compound in south Mumbai, the official said.

The incident came to light at 1 pm when a crime branch official noticed that Thapan was in the toilet for a long time. When the door was forced open, he was found hanging from the toilet’s window, the official said.

He was rushed to the nearby state-run Gokuldas Tejpal hospital where he was declared dead during treatment, the official said.

There were five other accused in the lock-up at the time of the incident. Two co-accused of Thapan in the firing case had been taken out for investigation, the official said.

Thapan and Sonu Kumar Bishnoi (32) were arrested by a crime branch team from Fazilka in Punjab on April 26. The two had allegedly supplied weapons to shooters Sagar Pal and Vicky Gupta for firing at Salman Khan’s residence.

As per the police, the duo visited Panvel near Mumbai on March 15 to deliver two country-made pistols and 38 live rounds to Pal and Gupta. Thapan and Sonu’s village in Punjab is very close to jailed gangster Lawrence Bishnoi’s village.

Lawrence, currently lodged in Sabarmati central prison in Ahmedabad, and his younger brother Anmol Bishnoi who is believed to be in the US or Canada, have been named in the firing case.