Salman Khan fresh death threat - Accused Mayank wanted to increase Instagram followers: Police

Salman Khan

A day after a death threat was issued to Bollywood superstar Salman Khan, Mumbai Police acted briskly and arrested a man named Mayank Pandya.

25-year-old Mayank had sent a death threat to Salman via WhatsApp message. He wanted to increase his number of Instagram followers, police said.

Mayank, who is from Vadodara, Gujarat, has confessed to copying the style of threats given by the Lawrence Bishnoi gang in the past.

Yesterday, news agency PTI reported that Mayank is mentally unstable, police said on Tuesday.

The Mumbai police also issued a notice to him, asking him to appear before them whenever required, they said.

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The accused, a resident of a village in Waghodia taluka of Vadodara, has not been arrested, the police said.

The WhatsApp helpline of the Mumbai Traffic Police received a message on Sunday wherein the sender threatened to blow up Salman Khan's car with a bomb and assault the Y-Plus-protectee by entering his residence.

The Worli police in Mumbai subsequently registered a case against the then unidentified person under section 351(2)(3) (criminal intimidation) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and tightened security outside Salman Khan's residence in the Bandra area.

Following an investigation, the Mumbai police learned the threat message was sent by a person living in the Waghodia taluka of Vadodara, district Superintendent of Police Rohan Anand told reporters.

"A team of Mumbai police, accompanied by Waghodia police, reached the suspect's house at a village in Waghodia on Monday. However, it turned out that the man who had sent the message is mentally unstable and undergoing treatment," Anand said.

"The Mumbai police served him a notice for appearance and left," the official added.

As per the notice, the man has to appear before the Mumbai police for investigation whenever required, another official said.

In April last year, two motorbike-borne individuals fired four rounds outside Khan's residence at the Galaxy Apartments in Mumbai's Bandra area.

Salman Khan previously faced threats from the Lawrence Bishnoi gang, which warned him of consequences if he did not apologise to the Bishnoi community over the alleged killing of a blackbuck. Following these threats, the Mumbai police provided him with Y-Plus security.

Weeks after the firing incident last year, Navi Mumbai Police claimed to have uncovered a plot by the Bishnoi gang to kill Khan when he traveled to his farmhouse at Panvel near Mumbai. (With PTI Inputs)