The Maharashtra government has sent the Union home department a request seeking exemption from the provisions of law which prevent procuring the custody of jailed gangster Lawrence Bishnoi, an accused in the firing on actor Salman Khan’s house at Bandra (Bombay) on April 14. Under section 268 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC), the government may bar the movement of high-risk prisoners outside the jail.
The Centre is likely to consider the request to allow the Bombay crime branch to take Bishnoi’s temporary custody from Sabarmati Jail in Gujarat, where he is lodged since one year. The arrested accused in the Salman firing case have told the police that the order to attack Khan came from Lawrence and his Canada-based cousin, Anmol. The crime branch had earlier invoked the stringent Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) in the case.
Lawrence Bishnoi has issued multiple threats to Salman since 2022 for his alleged involvement in the 1997 black buck killing case near Jodhpur in Rajasthan during the shooting of Hum Saath Saath Hain. Black bucks are considered holy by the Bishnoi community.
In the wee hours of April 14, two armed men on motorbike fired multiple rounds outside Salman’s residence. A total of seven persons have since been arrested in connection with the firing. One of them allegedly hanged himself in the police lock-up on May 1. Besides this, the Navi Mumbai police last month arrested five men who were allegedly planning an ambush near the actor’s Panvel farmhouse using sophisticated weapons.