The second gun was recovered from Tapi River in Surat on Tuesday. Pic/ANI

Mumbai: The Mumbai crime branch probing the April 14 firing on actor Salman Khan’s house has recovered the second gun, along with two magazines containing 17 bullets, that the alleged shooters threw in the Tapi river in Surat in their attempt to cover their tracks. The first gun was found earlier in the river on Monday.

The recovery of both the illegal country-made pistols from the riverbed, which in some places was 20m deep, was made with the help of Dubai-based Envitech Marine Consultants, which had earlier helped investigators recover the alleged weapon used in rationalist Narendra Dabholkar’s murder and had offered its services in tracing MBBS student Sadichha Sane, who went missing from Bandra Bandstand in Nov 2021.

The crime branch’s unit 9 team, led by inspector Daya Nayak, reached Tapi river along with one of the alleged shooters, Vikas Kumar Gupta, who showed them the railway bridge from where he and his accomplice, Sagar Kumar Pal, threw the two weapons and the magazines. Five scuba divers, equipped with floodlights and powerful magnetic equipment, scoured the river for the guns.

After a search of nearly eight hours, they found one pistol and four more hours later, they were able to trace the second weapon and the 17 bullets. Police performed the videography of the recovery and made a spot panchnama.

“We used the technology of using powerful magnets underwater to detect the weapons. Our company had similarly removed a weapon in the Dabholkar case for the CBI. In this operation, in some places, the river was 20m deep. It was a big challenge, but our efforts yielded results,” said Vishnu Sharma, an official of Envitech.

Police said the seizure of the two pistols will help them build a watertight case against jailed gangster Lawrence Bishnoi, who is alleged to have ordered the firing. They said they have already established the chain of events and the sequence of crime to show that Lawrence and his Canada-based brother Anmol Bishnoi are wanted accused in the case.

Police are now working out how many bullets were with the alleged hired henchmen. “Anmol Bishnoi had arranged for two weapons and 35 bullets, of which they fired four rounds at Salman Khan’s balcony. One bullet fell to the ground, and now, we have recovered 17,” said a source, adding that police suspect the remaining were used by Gupta and Pal while practising firing in Bihar. The two, hailing from Bihar, were arrested from Bhuj on April 16.

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The Mumbai Crime Branch Unit-9 has recovered the two pistols used in the Salman Khan firing incident, along with four magazines and 13 live rounds from the Tapi River in Surat, Gujarat. The two pistols recovered by the crime branch are suspected to be foreign-made weapons, possibly of Chinese or Pakistani origin. The crime branch deployed skilled divers from Mumbai who used magnetic equipment to locate the firearms in the Tapi River. The first pistol was recovered on Monday from the same spot.

Senior Inspector Daya Nayak, leading Crime Branch Unit-9, accompanied one of the accused, Vicky Gupta, to the Tapi River to pinpoint the location where they disposed of the pistol. Gupta identified the pistol and confirmed its use in the firing incident.

The Tapi River in Surat flows through Maharashtra, Gujarat, and Madhya Pradesh. It has a depth ranging from 20 feet to 30 feet during high tide and a variable flow speed of 2-15 kmph, depending on winds. Strong undercurrents in the river made it challenging for divers to retrieve the objects in a stretch spanning approximately 1.2 km. The crime branch launched a search operation to recover the firearms from the river after Gupta revealed during interrogation how they had escaped and discarded the firearms.

According to a police officer, the brother of gangster Lawrence Bishnoi, Anmol who claimed responsibility for the attack, had instructed the shooters to fire at least 10 rounds at Khan’s residence. Anmol had also planned their escape. An officer stated that the Bishnoi gang, with over 700 operatives across five Indian states, is known for its distinctive firing patterns.

The gang operates primarily from Rajasthan, Haryana, and Punjab, with international networks extending to countries such as Italy, Armenia, Canada, Dubai, the Philippines, Pakistan, Azerbaijan, and Turkey. The duo, Vicky Gupta and Sagar Pal used the same firing pattern the gang is known for, including in the assassination of Punjab singer Sidhu Moose Wala and others.