Sidhu Moosewala murder case: Pune police arrest shooter Santosh Jadhav, aide from Gujarat

PUNE: The Pune police have arrested Santosh Jadhav, a shooter in the case of murder of Punjabi singer Sidhu Moosewala, and Jadhav's aide Navnath Suryavanshi, a suspect in the case, an official said on Monday.

Jadhav (24), a member of the Lawrence Bishnoi gang, and Suryavanshi (27) were nabbed on Sunday from Mandavi tehsil at Bhuj in Gujarat by a team of Pune rural police, Additional Director General (Law and Order) Kulwant Singh Sarangal said addressing a press conference here.

Jadhav was nabbed in a 2021 murder case registered at Manchar police station in Maharashtra's Pune district, he said.

The official said Jadhav, who was on the run for a year, had shaved his head and changed his appearance to evade arrest. A Pune rural police team has also gone to Delhi to interrogate Bishnoi, who is in the Delhi Police special cell custody and is said to be the mastermind behind the killing of Moosewala, he said.

The names of Jadhav and Suryavanshi had cropped up in the Moosewala murder probe. Multiple police teams, including from Delhi and Punjab, were searching for them. The Pune rural police had also intensified their search and last week arrested Siddhesh Kamble alias Mahakal, accused of sheltering Jadhav after the 2021 murder case.

They had sent multiple teams to Gujarat and Rajasthan last week to trace Jadhav. "We apprehended Jadhav and Suryavanshi after receiving information from Mahakal," Sarangal said.

He said all three are associated with the Lawrence Bishnoi gang and are suspected to have a role in the Moosewala murder case.

"We are ascertaining their exact role in the murder case," the official said, adding that more persons from Maharashtra are linked to the Bishnoi gang, which has a pan-India presence. Suryavanshi is from Satara district in Maharashtra, but his father is settled in Gujarat. Suryavanshi is accused of giving shelter to Jadhav, he said.

"Both the accused have been arrested, They were produced before a court which remanded them to police custody till June 20," he said.

Mahakal, a member of the Bishnoi gang, was arrested in an MCOCA case registered against him at the Manchar police station here. He was also interrogated by the Delhi Police's special cell and Punjab Police in connection with the Moosewala murder case.

The Mumbai Police had also grilled Mahakal in connection with a threat letter to scriptwriter Salim Khan and his actor-son Salman Khan. Sarangal said as per the information, Mahakal had knowledge about the threat letter given to Salim Khan. "We are probing the case from all angles," he added.

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