Mumbai, Nov 12: Mumbai Police on Tuesday arrested a budding song writer for allegedly sending threat messages to Bollywood actor Salman Khan and demanding Rs 5 crore from him in the name of gangster Lawrence Bishnoi, an official said.

Sohail Pasha, held from Raichur in Karnataka, wanted a song written by him to become famous and used this ploy for the purpose, police claimed.

The WhatsApp helpline of Mumbai traffic police on November 7 received multiple messages stating that the sender was a member of the Bishnoi gang, and Salman Khan would be killed if he did not pay Rs 5 crore.

They would also kill the writer of the song "Main Sikandar Hun", the sender warned.

The crime branch of Mumbai Police tracked down the mobile number from which the messages had come to Raichur.

Accordingly, a team was sent to Karnataka and Vyankatesh Narayan, who owned the number, was interrogated, the official said.

But Narayan's mobile phone had no Internet facility, he said.

Police then found that his phone had received a WhatsApp installation OTP. Narayan told police that on November 3, a stranger approached him in a marketplace and asked if he could have Narayan's phone for making a call.

Probe revealed that the man had installed WhatsApp on his own mobile by using Narayan's mobile number to obtain an OTP, the official said.

The crime branch team then zeroed in on Pasha at Manavi village near Raichur.

He turned out to be the writer of "Main Sikandar Hun" song mentioned in the threat, the official said, adding that he wanted to make the song famous and hence used this ploy of including it in a threat message to a famous person.

Pasha was brought to Mumbai and handed over to Worli police for further probe, the official said.

The traffic police helpline has received at least four threat messages for Salman Khan in the recent months.

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Guwahati, Apr 4 (PTI): The Assam cabinet has decided to lift all cases pending against people from the Koch Rajbongshi community in the Foreigners' Tribunals, Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said on Friday.

They will also no longer carry the tag of 'D' or doubtful voters, he said.

''There are 28,000 cases pending in different Foreigners' Tribunals in the state against people of the community. The cabinet has taken a historic decision of lifting the cases with immediate effect,'' Sarma said at a press conference here after the cabinet meeting.

The government believes that the Koch Rajbongshis are an indigenous community of the state and they are an inextricable part of ''our social and cultural fabric'', he asserted.

The people of this community are poor and have suffered a lot over the years, he said.

''They will no longer carry the tag of foreigners or ‘D’ voters,'' the CM said.

Foreigners Tribunals are quasi-judicial bodies, particularly in Assam, established to determine if a person residing in India is a "foreigner" as defined by the Foreigners Act of 1946, based on the Foreigners (Tribunals) Order of 1964.

These tribunals are designed to address matters related to citizenship and the presence of “foreigners” in India, specifically focusing on cases where someone is suspected of being an illegal immigrant.

There are 100 Foreigners’ Tribunals across Assam.

The Koch Rajbongshis have a sizeable presence in Assam, West Bengal, Meghalaya, and parts of Bangladesh, Nepal, and Bhutan, and they demand Scheduled Tribe status.