A 32-year-old man arrested in the case of the firing outside Bollywood actor Salman Khan's residence here allegedly hanged himself in the police lockup on Wednesday, officials said.
The Crime Investigation Department (CID) of Maharashtra police has taken over the probe into the custodial death of Anuj Thapan, and CCTV footage of the lockup will be examined, they said. Thapan was accused of supplying weapons to the shooters who opened fire outside Khan's residence in Bandra on April 14, and arrested by the Mumbai crime branch a week later. He hanged himself with a piece of bedsheet in the toilet of the first-floor lock-up, located in the crime branch building inside the police commissioner's office compound in south Mumbai, an official said.
The incident came to light at 1 pm on Wednesday when a crime branch official noticed that Thapan had been in the toilet for a long time. When the door was forced open, he was found hanging from the toilet's window, the official said. He was rushed to the nearby state-run Gokuldas Tejpal hospital, where he was declared dead during treatment, the official said.
There were five other accused in the lock-up at the time of the incident. Two co-accused of Thapan in the firing case had been taken out for investigation, the official said. The state CID has taken over the probe into Thapan's custodial death and it will investigate whether there was any negligence on the part of crime branch officials, he said.
Usually, if an accused informs the lockup in-charge that he wishes to go to the toilet, a police personnel accompanies him. The CID will look into whether these norms were followed, the official added.
Later in the evening, Thapan's body was sent to the state-run J J Hospital for in-camera postmortem, to be conducted by forensic doctors in the presence of a magistrate, while an accidental death case was registered at Azad Maidan police station.
A senior police official told PTI that there were five police personnel posted at the crime branch lockup, and as per the high court guidelines, CCTV cameras are also installed inside. "After examining the CCTV footage, we will find out what exactly happened," he said.
Thapan and Sonu Kumar Bishnoi (32) were arrested by a crime branch team from Fazilka in Punjab on April 26. The two had allegedly supplied weapons to `shooters' Sagar Pal and Vicky Gupta for firing at Salman Khan's residence. As per the police, the duo visited Panvel near Mumbai on March 15 to deliver two country-made pistols and 38 live rounds to Pal and Gupta. Thapan and Sonu's village in Punjab is very close to jailed gangster Lawrence Bishnoi's village.
Lawrence, currently lodged in Sabarmati central prison in Ahmedabad, and his younger brother Anmol Bishnoi, believed to be in the US or Canada, have been named as wanted accused in the firing case.
Thapan and Sonu were also accused, along with Lawrence and Anmol Bishnoi, in an earlier case of firing registered at Gangapur in Punjab, the official said, adding that Thapan was an important link in that case.
Speaking to the media here, Thapan's lawyer alleged that police "seemed to have used force" (during interrogation). "We are demanding an inquiry, by the CBI or state police," he added.
