Lawrence Bishnoi aide held from Bihar

PATNA: A wanted associate of notorious gangster Lawrence Bishnoi, who was recently taken into custody by Punjab Police and brought to Punjab from Delhi in connection with the murder of singer Sidhu Moosewala, has been arrested from Bihar’s Gopalganj district, police said on Saturday.

Gopalganj superintendent of police (SP) Anand Kumar said a Punjab police team, with the assistance of local police, arrested Mohammad Raza Hussain, a resident of Rajapur village under Mirganj police station limits, late Friday evening.

On Saturday, Hussain was produced before a Gopalganj court, which ordered his transit remand to the Punjab Police.

According to police, Hussain worked for Lawrence Bishnoi and Goldi Barar gang in Delhi, Punjab as well as in Bihar. Earlier, the Punjab police had arrested Hussain’s associates Shakti Singh from Bilaspur in Chhattisgarh and Mohammad Afzal Khan from Chapra in Bihar. The two were allegedly involved in demanding extortion money from a Ludhiana-based businessman.

The Punjab police team told reporters that following the murder of Sidhu Moosewala on May 29 at Mansa in Punjab, Hussain and his associates used to threaten people in Ludhiana and other districts of Punjab on WhatsApp calls. “They identified themselves as members of Lawrence Bishnoi gang and threatened to kill them if they failed to pay ransom. They also used to send videos of loaded weapons to instil fear in them. The kingpin of this racket will also be arrested soon,” one of the Punjab Police officers told reporters.

Gopalganj SP Kumar said several cases, including of extortion, were registered against Hussain with Mirganj and Uchkagaon police stations.

According to police, Hussain was hiding in his native village after the police heat mounted in Haryana and Punjab in the wake of Moosewala’s murder.