The conspiracy to murder Gurlal Singh Bhalwan, President of the Faridkot District Youth Congress and a Zilla Parishad member from Golewala, Punjab, was planned in Canada. This was revealed by the Delhi Police Special Cell on Sunday late evening after it managed to arrest three of the accused involved in the murder.
Police said that the men had shot dead Gurlal Singh as he was about to get into his car after coming out of a friend's shop in Faridkot's Jubilee Chowk on February 18. The arrested accused have been identified as Gurvinder Pal, Sukhwinder and Saurabh, all three from Faridkot, Punjab.
"The mastermind of the murder is Goldy Brar who is an associate of Lawrence Bishnoi, having several heinous cases registered against him. Presently, he is running an extortion cartel from his safe havens in Canada from where he targets several prominent Punjab-based businessmen," Manishi Chandra, DCP Counter Intelligence, Special Cell said.
Lawrence Bishnoi and Goldy Brar's syndicate targeted Gurlal Singh Bhalwan, who was suspected by Lawrence and Goldy to be supporting rival Bhambia gang while crafting his political fortunes.
Later, the plan was executed on February 18 after the shooters followed the victim up to Jubilee Chowk in Faridkot.
"When the deceased was taking out some belongings from his car, the shooters pumped about 12 bullets into his body and fled away with Saurabh and Sukhwinder Singh. They were picked up by Gurvinder at the outskirts of Faridkot city in a Hyundai Verna car. From there, they drove to Salasar, Rajasthan and then to Jhajjar, Haryana the next day," the officer added.
On February 5, Gurlal Singh had posted on his Facebook of his plan to travel to Delhi for joining the ongoing farmers' protest at Singhu border on February 9. Goldy instructed Gurvinder to see if the hired assassins could execute their task while Gurlal was at Singhu. However, the shooters could not get a chance because of the size of the protesting crowd. Later, Gurlal Bhalwan was detained briefly by local police. This further foiled the assassination plans.
Sustained efforts of the Counter Intelligence Unit have resulted in mapping and profiling of the members of the Lawrence Bishnoi gang.
Deep surveillance over technical identifiers being used by this highly sophisticated and technically nuanced criminal gang, coupled with human intelligence resulted in specific intelligence being received on the intervening night of February 20 and 21, that three persons suspected to be involved in the murder of Gurlal Singh leader in Faridkot, Punjab were expected to arrive at Sarai Kale Khan on their way to some hideouts in Uttar Pradesh. The trio were apprehended, and two guns and 8 live cartridges were recovered from their possession.