A 30-year-old IT engineer from Bengaluru has been arrested by the Mumbai police crime branch for allegedly sending threat and extortion messages to several actors, including Ayushmann Khurrana and Tusshar Kapoor .
The police said the accused thought of making a quick buck, taking advantage of the recent threats and firing incidents, allegedly undertaken by Lawrence Bishnoi gang to terrorise Bollywood celebrities.
The police said the arrested man has been identified as Vaibhav Mishra, 30, who worked as an IT engineer in Bengaluru. We have just taken him into custody,” said a police officer, adding that the accused had sent an audio clip threatening actor Tusshar Kapoor and demanding ₹ 5 crore. A few days after the shooting at actor Tiger Shroff’s car in Juhu on October 18, Tusshar Kapoor received an audio clip allegedly sent by Hari Chand Jat aka Harry Boxer, a close aide of incarcerated gangster Lawrence Bishnoi.
“After the information was reported by the actors, we started tracing the sender through his online profile and using technical details, we succeeded in reaching him. Deputy Commissioner of Police (Crime Branch) Rajtilak Roushan, confirmed the arrest and said that Mishra would be brought to Mumbai after obtaining a transit remand from a local court in Bengaluru. Therefore, they concluded it appeared to be the handiwork of someone else, perhaps trying to take advantage of the situation created by the Bishnoi gang.
The accused had sent messages to Ayushmann and several other actors on Instagram. The actor alerted the police about the threatening voice clip. Though the police sent the audio clip for forensic analysis, they felt the voice did not match Boxer’s voice samples available in police records.
“As of now, it does not appear that the IT engineer is linked to the Bishnoi gang in any manner, but we are yet to interrogate him and ascertain that,” the officer said.
