Mumbai, Aug. 14 :
Mumbai, Aug. 14:
Revellers at J49, one of Mumbai's favourite discotheques at Juhu, had barely started rolling in when four armed men stormed in and sprayed bullets.
The attack last night had no apparent target but has struck right at the heart of Mumbai's partygoers. 'Oh god, I am such a regular visitor at J49,'' said Pinky Shah, a copywriter. 'What if I had been there when the shootout happened? I don't think I'll go there ever again.'
At about 9.30 pm, four men, some carrying carbines, sauntered into the disco. After surveying the scene, they began firing indiscriminately. Two persons were injured though eyewitnesses and police said they were not the real targets. While a bouncer was shot in the leg, the watchman, Dinesh Jha, was hit on the shoulder.
What has baffled the police are the accounts of eyewitnesses, saying the gunmen 'seemed to be in no hurry to flee'. After firing 29 rounds, the assailants just walked away.
'Maybe they wanted to show that they were not afraid and that they meant business,' said an officer posted at Juhu police station.
What is also rankling the police is the use of carbines, supposed to be rare in attacks by the underworld. The shootout has the police struggling with the identity of the men and their motive.
One theory doing the rounds is that Hemant Pujari, former aide of underworld don Chhota Rajan, was behind the attack. Crime branch sources conjectured that Pujari's gang 'basically intended to show the gang's clout and its increasing hold over the city'.
Another conjecture is that the shooters were actually targeting owner Dhananjay Shetty as his brother, Vinod, is believed to have played a key role in the attack on Rajan in Bangkok, which was masterminded by Chhota Shakeel and his hit-man Sharad Shetty.