Pune police team visits Delhi to question gangster Bishnoi for leads on Moosewala murder case accused

Pune: A team of the Pune rural police has travelled to Delhi to interrogate gangster Lawrence Bishnoi, who is currently in the custody of the police there and who is said to be the mastermind in the murder case of Punjabi singer Sidhu Moosewala, an official said on Friday.

The purpose of the interrogation is to get some leads on the whereabouts of Santosh Jadhav, a member of the Bishnoi gang and one of the accused in the Moosewala murder case, who is currently on the run, he said.

Bishnoi is currently in Delhi police’s custody. On Wednesday, the Delhi police had said that Bishnoi was the mastermind of Moosewala’s murder. ”A team of two officers has gone to Delhi special cell, seeking to interrogate Bishnoi. We would like to interrogate Bishnoi to find out the whereabouts of Jadhav, who is one of the members of his gang,” a senior official of the Pune rural police said.

Jadhav, who has been identified as a shooter in the Moosewala murder case, is also an accused in a murder case in Pune, in which the stringent Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) has been invoked against him.

Apart from gathering information about Jadhav’s whereabouts, the Pune rural police also want to know if any other youth from Maharashtra is associated with the Bishnoi gang, the official said.

Besides the team in Delhi, three more teams are out to trace Jadhav, he said.

Meanwhile, a team of the Punjab police, which had come to Pune rural police headquarters, grilled ‘Mahakal’ alias Siddhesh Kamble, an alleged member of the Bishnoi gang, in connection with the Moosewala murder case.

Kamble, against whom the stringent Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) has been invoked, was wanted by the Pune rural police for allegedly sheltering Jadhav, against whom a murder case was registered at Manchar police station in Pune district in 2021. On Thursday, the Mumbai police had claimed that three members of the Bishnoi gang had delivered a letter threatening Bollywood actor Salman Khan and his father, writer Salim Khan, and it was part of gangster Vikram Brar’s plan to terrorise them and extort money from them. Kamble, who is also suspected to be involved in the Moosewala murder case, made this revelation during interrogation, they had said. Mumbai Police’s crime branch questioned Kamble in Pune on Thursday. On May 29, Moosewala was shot dead by unidentified assailants in Punjab’s Mansa district.