MUMBAI/Rohtak, Feb. 17 -- The Mumbai police crime branch has arrested seven more persons in connection with the firing incident outside film producer and director Rohit Shetty's residence on February 1, taking the total number of arrests in the case to 12. The seven accused were arrested on Sunday in a joint operation with the Uttar Pradesh and Haryana police special task forces, police officers familiar with the probe said on Monday. Four of them including 24-year old Deepak Ramesh Chandra Sharma who allegedly fired five rounds outside Shetty's home were arrested from Haryana, while the remaining three were arrested from Uttar Pradesh, the officers mentioned. Inspector Rakesh Kumar, head of Bahadurgarh STF in Haryana, said that the joint teams arrested four persons who had allegedly opened fire at Shetty's residence and they were handed over to the anti-extortion cell of the Mumbai Police for further probe. All seven accused - Deepak Sharma, Sonu Thakur, Sunny Kumar, Ritik Kumar, Jatin Bharadwaj, Vishal Balakram and Vishnu Kushwaha - were produced in court after being brought to the city and have been remanded in police custody till February 25, said Lakhmi Gautam, joint commissioner of police, crime branch. "Since the accused had switched off their mobile phones after the firing, we worked both manually and technically to nab them," Gautam said. Ten police teams were formed to track the accused in the field while other officers followed technical leads, the joint commissioner said. These teams left the city on February 1 itself, following the trail of the accused based on CCTV footage. They were able to track the accused down using technical support and questioning auto and taxi drivers, Gautam noted. Vishnu Kushwaha, a resident of Bijouli village in Uttar Pradesh's Agra district and one of the seven arrested accused, was assigned the task of executing the firing outside Shetty's house at the behest of alleged gangster and associate of the Lawrence Bishnoi gang Shubham Lonkar, a statement issued by the UP STF on Monday said. Kushwaha had earlier worked for Lonkar's alleged associate Golu Pandit, who was still in touch with the fugitive gangster via the Signal app, the statement noted. According to investigators, four arrested accused were directly involved in executing the attack. Sonu Thakur, 23, was well-aware of Mumbai's topography as he had stayed in the city for two years while Sunny Kumar, Deepak Sharma and an absconding accused arrived in Mumbai on January 18 and recced Shetty Tower multiple times before the firing incident. On January 31, Sonu and Deepak travelled from Kalyan to Juhu on a scooter. They drank alcohol at a wine shop, after which Sonu left for Juhu beach while Deepak went to Shetty Tower and fired five rounds from a 7.62 bore semi-automatic pistol provided to him. Deepak and Sonu then fled from the spot on the scooter, left it outside Vile Parle railway station, and travelled to Thane in an auto. From Thane, they took another auto to Kalyan, met Sunny and the absconding accused mentioned earlier, and took an express train to Agra. They later fled to Delhi, Ghaziabad and Noida. All seven arrested accused are school or college drop-outs, police said....