Ten accused, three alleged shooters in custody till Oct 31. The step-by-step legal road ahead: police remand, the chargesheet clock, charges, and trial.
Updated: October 24, 2026, 11:30 IST
Quick Read
- The three alleged shooters are in police custody till October 31. Ten people have been arrested in total, across the shooting, weapon-supply and recce modules.
- Next steps: extensions of police custody, then judicial custody, a chargesheet (due within 90 days for serious offences), framing of charges, and trial.
- Mumbai Police have said they plan to invoke MCOCA’s organised-crime provisions — which, if applied, make bail far harder and move the case to a special court.
The firing outside Tiger Shroff’s car in Juhu on October 18 took seconds. What comes next will take months, maybe years. Ten people are in custody, three of them the alleged shooters. Here’s what the Indian legal process does with them now — step by step, in plain words.
One thing to get straight first: nobody is punished before a trial ends. Arrest is not conviction. Every step below — custody, chargesheet, charges, trial — is how India gets from “caught” to “convicted or acquitted.”
Step 1: police custody — now till October 31
Right now, the three alleged shooters — Phool Singh (18), Rehan Rahisuddin Ansari (18) and Rithik Mahto (22) — are in police custody till October 31, as the Indian Express reported. Police custody means the accused stay with the police, who can question them to recover evidence: the weapons, the money trail, the phones. It is not a free pass — police must bring the accused before a magistrate and ask for custody, and the court decides how many days to grant.
Expect the police to ask for more time on October 31. The handler’s identity is still unknown — police suspect Anil Pandit (whose Bishnoi-gang claim rests on an unverified social-media post) or the Sonipat link men — and the ~Rs 2 lakh money trail and the weapon chain are still being mapped. Custody extensions let investigators keep questioning while they build the case.
Mumbai Police have also said they plan to invoke the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act — MCOCA — against the accused. An officer told the Indian Express on October 21 that sections of MCOCA would “soon” be invoked. That word matters: it hasn’t been stated as done yet. If MCOCA is applied, the case changes shape — read on.
Step 2: the chargesheet and the 90-day clock
Once police custody ends, the accused move to judicial custody — jail, not the police station. They stay there while the investigation wraps up. The police then file a chargesheet: the full written case against each accused — who did what, the evidence, the witnesses.
Here’s the part most people don’t know. For serious offences — the kind this case involves — police generally must file the chargesheet within 90 days of arrest. If they miss that deadline, the accused get a right to ask for “default bail”: bail the court must grant, whatever the crime. That 90-day clock is the real pressure on investigators, and it’s why custody extensions and early arrests of the remaining modules matter.
The exact charges will only be known when the chargesheet lands. In firing cases of this kind, the charges typically include attempt to murder, criminal conspiracy, and offences under the Arms Act — plus, if MCOCA is invoked, organised-crime provisions. Those are the categories, not the final list. The chargesheet decides.
Also read
- Tiger Shroff shooters: how the Juhu-to-Kota chase was cracked
- Tiger Shroff case: 10 arrested after Sonipat recce
- Tiger Shroff case: Delhi women held in gun-supply chain
Step 3: charges, and the trial
After the chargesheet, the court “frames” charges — it formally tells each accused what they must answer. Then the trial begins: witnesses are examined, evidence is tested, both sides argue. Trials in gang-linked firing cases run long. If MCOCA provisions are applied, the case goes to a special court, and bail becomes far harder to get — under MCOCA-type laws, the accused must generally show the court they are not guilty before bail is even considered, which flips the usual bail logic.
Punishment, if there is a conviction, depends on which charges are proved — and no sentence exists until the trial ends. That is the whole point of the process: slow, step-by-step, with the accused in custody but not yet judged. For context on how the accused were caught and what police already have, see our Juhu-to-Kota investigation trail; the full 10-arrest picture is here.
The cross-border wrinkle
One thread sits outside India. Police suspect the shooters’ handler may be Anil Pandit, believed to be in the US. If Indian agencies want him in an Indian courtroom, they’d need him back the way they bring back other gang figures — through deportation or extradition. The recent precedent: Anmol Bishnoi was deported from the US to India on November 19, 2025, and arrested by the NIA on arrival in New Delhi, per IANS. That route took about a year. Any move against a US-based handler would be its own long, separate process.
FAQ
- How long can the Tiger Shroff case accused stay in police custody?
The three alleged shooters are in police custody till October 31. Police can ask the court for extensions, but only the court grants them — and only for questioning and evidence recovery, in short stretches. After that comes judicial custody (jail) while the trial process runs. - What is MCOCA, and why does it matter here?
The Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act targets organised crime. Mumbai Police have said they plan to invoke it against the accused (stated October 21, not yet confirmed as done). If applied, the case moves to a special court and getting bail becomes far harder than in an ordinary criminal case. - When will the chargesheet come, and when does the trial start?
For serious offences, police generally must file the chargesheet within 90 days of arrest — missing it gives the accused a right to default bail. The trial begins after the court frames charges on the basis of the chargesheet. Expect months before that stage, and a long trial after.
