Plot to kill Mahesh Bhatt: Cops arrest security guard for arranging firearms

Mumbai: One more person was arrested in connection with the plot to kill filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt and the firing outside Bollywood producer Karim Morani's residence in Mumbai in August, taking the number of arrests made in the twin cases to 14.

The accused, Ravi Singh, was apprehended on Friday for his alleged role in arranging six firearms for the gang members, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Crime) Mohan Dahikar said on Saturday.

Filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt in a file photo.

Singh played a key role in procuring firearms which were found in possession of the other accused, who are all members of a gang led by a fugitive underworld don, Ravi Pujari, arrested in both cases, police said.

Singh, who works as a watchman in Nalasopara, a distant Mumbai suburb, had accompanied Ishrat Shaikh, one of the arrested gangsters, to Madhya Pradesh to buy the six pistols and 30-odd live cartridges from an arms supplier, who was paid Rs 80,000, police added.

In a three-day operation beginning 15 November, police busted two modules, which were operating at the behest of foreign-based Pujari, and apprehended 13 of his men.

Singh was produced before a local court, which remanded him in police custody till 26 November.

Some of the 13 accused held last week, had fired three bullets in the air outside the residence of Morani on 23 August, police said.

The others were about to target Bhatt outside his office in suburban Khar on 15 November when the police acted swiftly and nabbed them along with firearms.

PTI