MUMBAI: With the arrest of four more persons, two of them with criminal records, police today claimed to have solved the case of last month's attack on an office-bearer of Shiv Sena's film wing here.
Three of them were apprehended from a brick kiln in suburban Goregaon, while the fourth one was nabbed from the same locality by Anti-Extortion Cell (AEC), police said.
With this, all the seven persons involved in planning and executing the attack on Raju Shinde, Secretary of Chitrapat Sena and a private contractor, inside the Film City in Goregaon have been rounded up.
According to the police, the motive behind the attack was to take revenge on Shinde, who was shot and critically injured by two motorcycle-borne men on May 22, over an argument related to a contract.
The firing incident took place close to a location where Bollywood megastar Amitabh Bachchan was shooting for a film.
"We had got a tip-off that the shooters were hiding in a brick kiln in Goregaon and we nabbed them this morning," said Additional Commissioner of Police Fattesingh Patil.
He identified them as Sandip Khairnar (31), who fired the shots, Satish More (22), who drove the motorcycle, and Jitu Dheevar (32), an accomplice.
The fourth suspect, Suresh Gaikwad (31), was nabbed separately by AEC personnel. Police also recovered the pistol used by Khairnar along with two magazines and five `live' bullets.
Of the four men, More and Gaikwad have criminal records, said Patil.
On May 24, police had arrested Sumit Talekar (22), Jugal Dodiya (26) and Yogesh Kokane (31) in the case.
Shinde, the victim, is now recovering in hospital.
According to Patil, Kokane and his friends Gaikwad, Khairnar and one Rakesh Kamble had approached Shinde for a contract in the Film City in April, but they ended up having an argument with Shinde. The Chitrapat Sena Secretary and his associates then beat them up.
To take revenge for the assault, they hatched a plot to kill Shinde.
Police found vital clues from the motorcycle left behind by the assailants and zeroed in on the culprits, Patil said.