The crime branch of Bombay, investigating the alleged Rs. 20 crore extortion threat received by filmmaker Rohit Shetty on June 27 have traced the threatening voice message to a Pakistan-linked virtual private network (VPN). However, police officers said that the threat currently appears to be more in the nature of a prank than a credible extortion attempt. They added that it is almost impossible to track these private VPNs. They also said, the caller may have recorded the message in India and used the private VPN of Pakistan to send the message back to India.
In February this year, the Lawrence Bishnoi gang had fired five rounds outside Rohit’s house at Juhu in Bombay. Fifteen persons have already been arrested in this regard and MCOCA has been invoked against them.
In the present threatening call case, the police have sent the voice samples to forensic experts to match with the voice of Bishnoi gang member Shubham Lonkar. According to the police, the caller attempted to make the threat appear genuine by mentioning specific details about Shetty, his whereabouts, belongings and other matters related to him. But since such information is publicly available on social media, its evidentiary value in establishing access to privileged information is reduced.