Vickykumar Gupta, one of the accused in the April shooting incident outside the home of Bollywood star Salman Khan in Mumbai, surprisingly claimed that he had been influenced by Lawrence Bishnoi, a jailed gangster. Gupta filed an application for bail on Monday and said that he did it because he was poor and needed money owing to his insolvency as well as stated that Bishnoi did not have any connection with the case.
According to Gupta’s defense counsel, Bishnoi’s character traits and values had appealed to their client who got informed about them from both online sources and printed media. His attorneys further emphasized that the defendant didn’t do this under Lawrence Bishnoi but got influenced by his ideas. He said they aimed at intimidating Salman Khan for killing two blackbucks back in 1998 which upset the Bishnois community whose beliefs include worshiping this animal. Gupta maintained that Lawrence Bishnoi had no involvement in the incident and was being wrongly implicated by the prosecution.
The special court constituted under Maharashtra Control of Organized Crime Act (MCOCA Act) has issued notice to the prosecution seeking its response and adjourned matter for arguments on August 13. Through Guptas bail plea, further complexities are brought out; complexities that have highlighted intersections between crime, celebrity culture as well as social media influence. As this develops, it will be interesting to see how Gupta’s claims are interpreted by the court vis-à-vis Lawrence Bishnoi’s ideology with respect to this particular happening.
Talking of which two bikers fired shots outside his plush residential society at Galaxy Apartments in Bandra area of suburban Mumbai during early morning hours on April 14th. Although shook up by what happened residents escaped unhurt or dead. Since then several arrests have been made regarding this case as investigations are still ongoing. The police had suspected gangster Lawrence Bishnoi who has previously openly threatened to kill Salman Khan and his family but now the recent twists do not seem so.
