"Threat letter" to Salman Khan and father Salim Khan said they "will meet the same fate as Moose Wala".
Actor Salman Khan has told the Mumbai police that he had not got any threatening call, message or been in any altercation in the past few days, sources have told NDTV. His statement was recorded on Monday evening, a day after a threat letter addressed to him and his father, writer Salim Khan, was found on a bench where Salim Khan was sitting after a morning walk near the family home in Mumbai's Bandra.
Earlier on Monday, jailed gangster Lawrence Bishnoi, a suspect in the May 29 murder of Punjabi singer Sidhu Moose Wala, reportedly denied having anything to do with this threat letter. The one-line threat in Hindi was written on a paper chit: "Salim Khan, Salman Khan Bahut Jald Aapka Moose Wala Hoga... (Salim Khan, Salman Khan, very soon you will meet Moose Wala's fate)," and had the initials 'LB', which brought Lawrence Bishnoi into the picture.
Lawrence Bishnoi had issued a threat to Salman Khan in 2018 too in an interaction with journalists outside a court where he'd been brought for a hearing in Jodhpur. He is currently in Tihar Jail in Delhi.
Before speaking to Salman Khan in the matter of the threat letter now, police recorded Salim Khan's statement too. Security was also enhanced around the family residence in Mumbai's Bandra. A case under section 506-II (criminal intimidation) of the Indian Penal Code has been registered at the Bandra police station. Police Commissioner Sanjay Pandey said the police were taking the threat letter very seriously.
Salman Khan is reported to have left Mumbai for a movie shoot after recording his statement.
In a threat similar to the one received by Salman Khan, Congress MP from Ludhiana (Punjab) Ravneet Singh Bittu on Tuesday got a call on his personal assistant's mobile phone, saying that he will meet the same fate as his late party colleague Sidhu Moose Wala.
Sidhu Moose Wala, who had unsuccessfully contested the Punjab assembly polls earlier this year, was shot dead by at least four men in a village in Mansa district of Punjab when he was traveling with a friend a cousin.