New Delhi: The Haryana Special Task Force (STF) has arrested four members of the Rohit Godara-Goldy Brar gang, including the trio involved in killings in the US, the force’s chief said Thursday. The arrests took place in Haryana earlier this week following inputs that a Godara gang member back from the US had purchased a bulletproof Ford Endeavour from Delhi.
The arrested have been identified as Raman, Lokesh, Balraj and Ravinder—all from the state’s Kaithal district. While Lokesh was in India, Balraj and Ravinder fled from the US and reached India last November, and Raman returned home in October.
Addressing a press conference Thursday, Haryana STF chief B. Satheesh Balan said the four accused had carried out a couple of fatal attacks in the US. They were also involved in the murder of gangster Sunil Yadav alias Goliya in December 2024 in California, he added.
Godara, a former aide of jailed gangster Lawrence Bishnoi, had on social media claimed responsibility for the killing, holding Goliya accountable for the police encounter of his close aide Ankit Bhadu. The murder was meant to “avenge” Bhadu’s killing, he stated.
A resident of Punjab’s Fazilka district, from where Bishnoi too hails, Goliya was, for a long time, blamed for the encounter of Bhadu at the hands of Punjab Police’s Organised Crime Control Unit (OCCU) in Zirakpur in February 2019.
Godara claimed on social media that Yadav tipped off the Punjab Police about Bhadu’s location, leading to the encounter.
Last October, the accused carried out an attack on another gangster, Harry Boxer, in California, leading to the killing of his associate, Banwari Godara. Boxer escaped the attack with injury, the officials said.
The STF chief named accused Raman as a key figure behind the attack and said he had joined forces with Godara about six months ago, following a split in the Bishnoi-Brar gang. He said Raman hired two shooters of African-American origin in the US and paid them $7,500 to kill Boxer, at the behest of Godara.
According to officials, Raman went to the US in 2017 and destroyed his passport to seek asylum. He was jailed for nine months for overstaying his visa and worked as a truck driver in California. He was granted a green card in 2022.
STF officials said Raman received $30,000 in his Bank of America account in California for the attack on Harry Boxer, of the Rs 2 crore promised by Godara for killing him. All three (Raman, Balraj and Ravinder) were at the attack spot, Balan said.
The trio managed to escape law enforcement agencies in the US as they burnt the vehicles used in the crime and the weapons were thrown into rivers, officials said.
The attack on Boxer, another aide of Bishnoi, was a sign of the escalating rift between Brar and Bishnoi, officials of the STF said, adding that the arrested accused had also provided weapons to the two local shooters who carried out the attack.
Shortly after the attack on Boxer, Godara purportedly put out another social media post taking responsibility for it and making a jibe at Bishnoi. “Harry Boxer is a follower of Lawrence Bishnoi. He fled, leaving his associate behind,” Godara purportedly wrote.
STF SP Waseem Akram said the Karnal unit of the force intercepted Raman and Lokesh in the town on 10 January, in the bulletproof Ford Endeavour. From them, the STF recovered four foreign-made pistols and eight live cartridges.
They were taken into custody after an FIR under Sections 111(4) and 281 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, relating to organised crime and rash driving, and sections of the Arms Act was registered at Nissing police station in Karnal. Their arrest led officials to other wanted accused, Balraj alias Balram and Ravinder Singh alias Ravi, in Kaithal.
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)
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