As police begin a probe into the firing at actor Tiger Shroff, more details are emerging about the swift 15-minute operation that nabbed three accused from the general coach of the Pune–Jaipur Superfast Express when it halted in Kota on Monday morning.
Police detained two accused sitting in the general coach, along with another accused who had fired the gun.
According to officials, what came in handy was the inter-state police coordination between the Mumbai and Kota senior police officials. Mumbai Crime Branch DCP Raj Tilak Roshan and Kota City SP Tejaswini Gautam were 2013-batch IPS batchmates, which helped open a direct channel in this case.
Soon after Tiger Shroff’s car was fired upon, Mumbai Police registered a case and deployed more than 20 teams to apprehend the accused. When technical surveillance revealed that the shooters had left by train, DCP Roshan directly alerted his batchmate, Kota SP Gautam.
“As soon as we received information from the Mumbai Police in the morning, a trap was laid in just 15 minutes with the help of the DST, Cyber Cell, and RPF teams. According to the Kota SP, as soon as the input came from Mumbai, a joint team of the AGTF, Kota City Police, and RPF took action,” SP Gautam was quoted as saying by Dainik Bhaskar.
Mumbai DCP Roshan continued to follow up on the entire case. He provided Kota SP Tejaswini Gautam with updates and information related to the accused, based on inputs received from the Crime Branch team.
According to the Mumbai Police, they worked on two levels in this case. While the first level saw 20 Crime Branch teams examine over 200 CCTV footage clips from the Juhu and Andheri West railway station areas, the bike route, and the shooters’ first-day footage, level 2 was in Kota. After the input that the accused were on the Pune–Jaipur Express, the DST (District Special Team) confirmed the coach and bogie of the train. The Cyber Cell tracked the live location and position of the coach. Following this, the Rajasthan Anti-Gangster Task Force (AGTF) and Kota City Police jointly laid siege. Then, the RPF surrounded the area from all sides.
The bike used in the attack was also recovered. The shooter was identified as a bike taxi rider who lived in Andheri West.
The three were identified as: 22-year-old Hrithik Kurmi alias Roshan, a resident of Bihar, who drives a Rapido in Mumbai; 18-year-old Rehan, from Sonipat, Haryana; and a 17-year-old minor, also from Haryana.
Kota SP Tejaswini Gautam said: “Preliminary investigation has revealed that the accused were going to flee from Jaipur to Delhi and from there to Nepal.”
He added that after the firing in Mumbai, the three accused fled on bikes. From there, they travelled via SV Road to Vile Parle and reached Andheri station. From there, they boarded a train and escaped. To evade police, the accused got off the train in Surat, Gujarat. From there, they boarded the general coach of the Pune–Jaipur Express train.
