3 sharpshooters hired removed from final plan last minute: Cops

Three sharpshooters hired to murder Punjabi singer Sidhu Moosewala were removed from the final plan hours before the incident in Mansa district on May 29, police officers said, adding that the trio even took part in the final recce a day before the killing.

So far, six shooters involved in the murder have been identified, of which three were in the custody of the Delhi Police special cell, two killed in an encounter with the police in Amritsar recently while one was absconding, a senior police officer said.

During questioning of the accused, who were arrested by the New Delhi range of the special cell, they confirmed that three more shooters were part of the plan besides the six shooters identified by the police, a senior officer of the special cell said.

“They identified the trio as Mandeep Singh alias Toofan of Batala in Punjab, Manpreet Singh alias Mani Raiya of Amritsar and one unidentified person,” said Pramod Kushwaha, deputy commissioner of police (special cell, New Delhi range). “They said the three shooters took part in recce done before Moosewala’s murder.”

Canada-based gangster Goldy Brar, the main conspirator in the singer’s murder, asked the three shooters to back out

Sidhu Moosewala

hours before the incident, the DCP said.

“They were earlier asked to be in Punjab Police uniform at the time of commission of crime. Two days before the murder, they were asked to accompany Jagroop Roopa and Manpreet Mannu in a car the shooters were to travel in. But on May 28, they received the order from Brar to be in some other vehicle and give cover to Roopa and Mannu shooters. The facilitators had kept another vehicle ready for them, but in the last hours, the three shooters were asked to vacate the area,” Kushwaha said.

A senior Punjab Police officer posted in Ludhiana said the state police arrested a man who allegedly supplied one set of weapons for Moosewala’s murder.

“Satbir Singh of Amritsar, along with these three accomplices (Toofan, Raiya and one unidentified person), had travelled to a petrol pump on Dabwali road of Bathinda, where some weapons were handed over to them,” the officer said. Moosewala was shot dead on a highway in Punjab’s Mansa on May 29.