Opinion | Shoot A Star, Become A Star: Why The Attack On Tiger Shroff Is Different

Updated: Oct 20, 2026 15:19 pm IST Published On Oct 20, 2026 15:19 pm IST Last Updated On Oct 20, 2026 15:19 pm IST

Published On Oct 20, 2026 15:19 pm IST

Last Updated On Oct 20, 2026 15:19 pm IST

"Bahut puja kar li, ab upar ja ke karna (you have done enough puja, now do it up there)."

Almost thirty years ago, those were the words that greeted music baron Gulshan Kumar on the morning of August 12, 1997, along with a pistol aimed at his temple. He had just left after his customary morning Shiv mandir visit, only to have three shooters put 16 bullets into him. His crime? He had refused to pay the second instalment of Rs 10 crore "protection money" to the underworld, which had set its eyes on his empire of 45 companies and studios across Mumbai and Delhi (estimated to be worth Rs 350 crore). The killing set off a cycle of fear and suspicion in the Mumbai film industry, which had begun with an assault on producer-director Rajiv Rai in his Mumbai office on July 31 that year, not long after he turned down the demand of extortionists, and two calls to director Subhash Ghai reportedly demanding Rs 5 crore.

Three decades after that, the attack on actor Tiger Shroff yesterday from close range by two shooters, in crowded Juhu, has set off a similar cycle of urban paranoia. It comes months after unidentified gunmen fired five rounds at filmmaker Rohit Shetty's multi-storey home, Shetty Tower, in Juhu. Both attacks were claimed by gangs connected to Lawrence Bishnoi, currently in Sabarmati Central Jail in Ahmedabad, where he has been since 2023, when the Gujarat Anti-Terrorism Squad sought his transfer from Tihar Jail for drug smuggling.

The playbook of the attacks may be the same, using novice shooters in crowded areas, but the players are totally different. The gangs that operated in Mumbai of the '90s were the intimate enemy, offshoots of Dawood Ibrahim's network, which........

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