HC seeks status report on Middukhera murder case

CHANDIGARH: The Punjab and Haryana high court on Thursday sought response from Punjab police on two pleas from Sidhu Moose Wala’s manager, Shaganpreet Singh, who had sought security claiming that he apprehended threat to his life from gangsters Lawrence Bishnoi and Goldy Brar, the accused in the singer’s murder case.

The court also sought a status report on the probe into the murder of Vicky Middukhera, a youth Akali Dal leader, who was shot dead in Mohali in August 2021. Shaganpreet had moved anticipatory bail plea in this matter.

The response has been sought by the bench of justice Anoop Chitkara by July 4. Detailed order from the bench is awaited.

In the plea, Shaganpreet, 29, had claimed that he was a close friend of the singer and working as a de-facto manager with Moose Wala and had gone to Australia on April 6.

“The petitioner is receiving death threats from associates of Bishnoi and Brar,” the plea claimed, adding that being his manager, he too apprehended the same fate as that of Moose Wala at the hands of these gangsters who believed that he had a role in the murder of the youth Akali leader murdered in Sector 71 on August 7 last year.

“The petitioner was neither named in the FIR (pertaining to murder of Middukhera) nor had his role surfaced during the investigation conducted for around eight months. The investigating agency, by taking the benefit of his absence, manipulated disclosure statement of one Ajay alias Sunny on

April 10, 2022, introducing the name of the petitioner,” the plea claimed referring to the probe into Middukhera’s murder.

It further added that the disclosure statement was manipulated with “ulterior motives” and was recorded under “pressure and coercion”.

This is established from the fact that it was recorded after eight months of the incident, the plea claimed, adding that he had been “implicated in the FIR on the basis of reported disclosure statement of a co accused.”

The investigating agency has “no other corroborative evidence in the form of call records or tower location or any kind of conversation between petitioner and co-accused,” the plea contended, adding that the manager had no links with the gang that allegedly murdered Middukhera.