Attack on actor Tiger Shroff is dark reminder of Bollywood's gangster past

On Sunday evening, Bollywood actor Tiger Shroff went to play football in Juhu, a leafy, affluent Mumbai neighbourhood where film stars live, fans congregate and celebrity sightings are a part of life. But as the 36-year-old was leaving the ground in his BMW, shots rang out. His driver was wounded, as was a vlogger who had come to film the actor.

Shroff, whose films usually include elaborate action sequences and choreographed escapes, had just survived an actual shooting attempt.

Four days later, the case still dominates headlines in India, with each new revelation spawning fresh theories, competing claims and a growing list of alleged conspiracies.

Police have detained or arrested 10 suspects, with investigators tracing alleged weapon deliveries through several states and examining payments made to the alleged attackers.

The attempted shooting has also brought the name of Lawrence Bishnoi, one of India's most notorious gangsters, back into the headlines. Soon after the attack, a screenshot of a social media post purportedly made by an alleged associate of the Bishnoi gang circulated online, claiming responsibility. A separate audio recording emerged in which a man identifying himself as Anil Pandit repeated the claim and said Shroff had been targeted over his alleged links to actor Salman Khan, who Bishnoi has been threatening for years.

Mumbai police have not verified the claims or established that the Bishnoi gang was behind the attempted shooting. Investigators are still trying to determine who ordered the attack and why.

The targeting of Shroff follows a series of threats and attacks involving prominent Bollywood figures, including gunfire outside Khan's home in 2024 and filmmaker Rohit Shetty's house earlier this year. Together, the incidents have revived fears about the reach of organised crime into the film industry, stirring memories of a darker era in Mumbai's history.

During the 1990s and early 2000s, the city's underworld exerted formidable influence over the film industry, financing productions, demanding protection money and sometimes using violence to enforce its demands. It took years of police operations, and the gradual arrival of institutional financing, to loosen that grip.

Now, as fresh allegations and theories emerge almost daily, a question that once seemed to belong to Mumbai's past has returned: is the underworld trying to control Bollywood again?