Bollywood actor Tiger Shroff survived a shooting attempt on Sunday evening as he was leaving a football field in Juhu, an affluent Mumbai neighborhood. The incident, which left his driver and a vlogger injured, has dominated Indian headlines and revived fears about the reach of organized crime into the film industry. Four days after the attack, police have detained or arrested 10 suspects, tracing alleged weapon deliveries and examining payments made to attackers.
The attempted shooting has also brought the name of Lawrence Bishnoi, a notorious gangster, back into the spotlight. Social media posts purportedly from an associate of the Bishnoi gang claimed responsibility for the attack, with one audio recording alleging Shroff was targeted due to his alleged links to actor Salman Khan, whom Bishnoi has been threatening for years. Mumbai police have not yet confirmed these claims or definitively linked the Bishnoi gang to the incident, and investigators are still working to determine who ordered the attack and the motive.
This incident follows a pattern of threats and attacks against prominent Bollywood figures, including gunfire outside Salman Khan's home in April 2024 and an incident at filmmaker Rohit Shetty's house earlier this year. These events echo a darker era in Mumbai's history, particularly the 1990s and early 2000s, when the city's underworld exerted considerable influence over the film industry through financing, protection rackets, and violence. It took years of police operations and the growth of institutional financing to diminish that grip.
Former officials familiar with combating organized crime in Mumbai express caution about labeling the recent events as a simple return of the mafia. D Sivanandhan, who led Mumbai's Crime Branch in 1998, recalled a time when gangsters based in Dubai could influence film casting, financing, and distribution. The line between investor and extortionist was often blurred, and threats were real, evidenced by the 1997 murder of music mogul Gulshan Kumar and an assassination attempt on filmmaker Rakesh Roshan in 2000. Sivanandhan's investigation into the financing of the 2000 film Chori Chori Chupke Chupke revealed underworld links that led to convictions of the producer and his assistant.
However, Sivanandhan differentiates the current situation from the Mumbai-based criminal networks he once pursued, such as those led by Dawood Ibrahim and Chhota Shakeel. He suggests the current phenomenon is distinct from the organized crime he knew.
The name Lawrence Bishnoi has become central to this new era. Bishnoi, a gangster from northern India currently incarcerated, is described as having an almost folkloric menace, commanding gunmen globally and using online platforms to spread threats and claims of responsibility. Bishnoi's past threats against Salman Khan, stemming from a 1998 poaching case, are well-documented. While police have linked both the 2024 gunfire outside Khan's home and the murder of politician Baba Siddique, a Khan associate, to the Bishnoi gang, Bishnoi's direct involvement in Siddique's killing has not been established.
Rakesh Maria, a former Mumbai police commissioner, points to Bishnoi as an example of a new generation of technologically adept and internationally connected gangsters. Maria described this new underworld as dispersed and fluid, making it harder to track than the more visible and territorial mafia of the past. He noted that these criminals no longer need to reside in the city to exert influence.
The relationship between gangsters and Bollywood has also evolved in how public image is managed. In the 1990s, films like Satya (1998) and Company (2002) explored the underworld, turning gangsters into figures of fascination. Film scholar Ashvin Immanuel Devasundaram noted that this era's fear and fascination were deeply ingrained in the public consciousness. Today, however, gangsters can bypass cinema to build their own mythology through social media, disseminating threats and claims of responsibility instantaneously to a wide audience.
Following the attack on Shroff, security was reportedly increased outside the homes of Salman Khan and Rohit Shetty, and the All Indian Cine Workers Association called for greater protection. While direct evidence of criminal networks regaining control over Bollywood's finances and decisions remains scarce, the recent attacks highlight a new vulnerability. The ability of a single violent act, amplified by social media, to spread fear far beyond its immediate target suggests that gangsters may no longer need to control an industry to unsettle it.