Fresh revelations continue to emerge in the firing incident outside the residence of Bollywood producer-director Rohit Shetty. According to sources, the Mumbai Crime Branch has found during its investigation that the Bishnoi gang significantly altered its earlier modus operandi before executing the attack.
Sources said that Shubham Lonkar had instructed the hired shooter to switch off his mobile phone before carrying out the firing. Acting on these instructions, the shooter kept his phone switched off not only during the incident but also afterwards. As a result, while the Crime Branch has managed to identify the shooter through CCTV footage, it has been unable to trace his location even four days after the incident, posing a serious challenge to investigators.
A senior official stated that the unidentified shooter has kept his mobile phone switched off so far, making it extremely difficult to track his location. Sources further claimed that the shooter has fled Mumbai, and multiple Crime Branch teams are currently working to track him down.
In earlier cases, including the firing outside actor Salman Khan’s residence and the murder of Baba Siddique, members of the Bishnoi gang were traced and arrested using mobile tower location data. In both cases, the accused remained in constant touch with their handlers through mobile phones before and after the crimes, a mistake that ultimately led to their arrest.
Learning from these past errors, Shubham Lonkar allegedly instructed the shooter hired for the Rohit Shetty firing incident not to use a mobile phone. Consequently, while the police quickly reached the accused involved in providing logistical support by tracing the scooter number recovered after the incident, the main shooter remains untraced.
According to sources, the four accused arrested from Pune in connection with this firing case are associates of Gaurav Apune, Aditya Gudankar and Rafiq Sheikh, who were earlier arrested for their alleged role in Plan B of the Baba Siddique murder conspiracy. Sources said all of them have known Shubham Lonkar since childhood, as he is also a resident of Karve Nagar. Lonkar allegedly trained these accused, with Samarth Pomaji remaining in constant touch with him.