New Delhi: Three more arrests have been made in the killing of Punjab-based influencer Madhusudan “Mad” Sandhu, Gujarat Police said Sunday. This brings the total number of arrests in the case to nine.
Sandhu, an influencer representing the LGBTQ community, was gunned down outside a garage in Amritsar on 3 October, allegedly by assailants who objected to his pro-LGBTQ content.
The Gujarat Police identified the three men arrested as Harsimranjit Singh alias Simu Singga, Fateh Singh and Arman Singh, all residents of Punjab’s Tarn Taran district. The trio, police said, left Punjab after Sandhu’s killing to evade suspicion. Their plan was to reach their hideout in Maharashtra, police added, but they were arrested by the Gujarat Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS).
The assailants arrested earlier have been identified as Parminder alias Kaka, Paramvir Singh—both residents of Jalandhar Rural, Amandeep, a resident of Kapurthala, Baljinder Singh, a resident of Tarn Taran, and Balraj Singh and Vikas Singh of Amritsar Rural.
How they were arrested
The Gujarat ATS has been coordinating with central agencies and law-enforcement agencies of various states to address organised crime and matters concerning internal security.
Information regarding the accused involved in the Sandhu case was shared by senior officials of the Crime Investigation Agency (CIA) Punjab with senior officers of Gujarat ATS, police said.
The ensuing investigation revealed that Simu Singga, Fateh Singh and Arman Singh were trying to hide in Vapi, Valsad district. “As there was a possibility of the accused fleeing, and considering the urgency of the situation, their profiles, location details and other relevant information were shared with the Valsad Special Operations Group (SOG),” a senior ATS official told ThePrint.
The team acted promptly and detained all three in Vapi, the officer added, saying they were then brought to the Gujarat ATS office for further interrogation. “During their detailed interrogation, the role of all three accused in the aforementioned murder case, the reconnaissance conducted before the crime, and other related details came to light,” the officer said.
“They had fled Punjab, attempting to go as far as possible from the state. Their initial plan was to go to Maharashtra, and remain in hiding there, however, any train, bus or road transport has to go via Gujarat, hence, they were intercepted here in Vapi,” the officer added.
On October 10, a team of Punjab Police arrived at the Gujarat ATS office, took custody of all three accused, and transported them to Punjab for further legal proceedings, said the officer.
The other accused were sniffed out by police following a Rs 16,000 money trail. This amount is believed to be the payment sent to the main shooter and another accused to carry out the murder.
According to Amritsar Police Commissioner Harmanbir Singh Gill, the money had been transferred to the bank account of the elder brother of the suspected main shooter—Parminder—by a network run by a foreign-based gangster.
He said the money trail was examined after the police identified the shooters—and looked into bank accounts linked to them and their relatives.
Gill told a press conference last week that the brother paid Parminder Rs 11,000 from this money, while the rest went to another person involved in the attack.
After the killing, Parminder alias Kaka, who has five cases registered against him in Punjab, fled to Gujarat. Gill said Kaka was caught after being tricked into scanning a QR code sent from his brother’s phone. This helped them locate Kaka’s whereabouts in Gujarat, he said.
Kaka was arrested Wednesday evening by the Ahmedabad Crime Branch, and an Amritsar Police team then took him to Punjab. The others arrested include the duo who allegedly tracked Sandhu’s movement in the days leading up to the murder. They have been identified as Balraj Singh and Vikas Singh. Paramvir Singh and Baljinder Singh allegedly arranged the weapons and bike used in the crime.
Also read: Mad Sandhu’s last months—A Nihang warning, online threats, request for protection
‘Notoriety’
A social media post within hours of Sandhu’s murder, attributed to Lawrence Bishnoi gang member Goldy Dhillon, accused him of being a bad influence on the state’s youth. Amritsar Police chief Gill has since confirmed the role of Dhillon in Sandhu’s killing, but said the extent of the module would be clear only after the arrest of all the accused.
Police said the motive appeared to be “earning notoriety”. “These gangsters want to earn a name for themselves by carrying out such killings in the region to create fear and terror in the minds of the public and businessmen of the area so that they can be called and extorted money from,” Gill said at his press conference.
Edited by Sunanda Ranjan
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