On Monday in Mumbai, India’s largest city, two men were arrested after they tried to kill Salman Khan, one of the most famous Indian actors in Bollywood – the name by which the popular Hindi language film industry is known – firing five gunshots at his villa in the Bandra district.
Police said the men are part of the Bishnoi community, who live in the state of Rajasthan, in northwestern India, and venerate the blackbuck, which is a protected species in India. The arrested men were trying to take revenge for an act committed by Khan in 1998, when he killed two buck antelope during a hunting trip.
The leader of the community is Lawrence Bishnoi, currently in prison for his involvement in several murder cases, including that of rapper Sidhu Moose Wala in 2022. Lawrence Bishnoi has been threatening Khan for more than twenty years: he had tried to kill him in 1999, while he was working on the filming of one of his most famous films, We are friends with each other.
Khan is 58 years old and is considered one of the most important figures in the Indian film industry. In 2018 he was sentenced to five years in prison for various poaching activities, including the one twenty years earlier which led to the killing of the two antelopes. His sentence was later suspended on appeal.