Threat to Salman Khan: Crime branch team reaches Punjab

The officer said the team will interrogate the accused arrested by the Punjab police and try to verify the revelation - that they had conducted recce of the Panvel farmhouse of the actor

Mumbai: As fresh revelations regarding the alleged threat to actor Salman Khan’s life came to light in the probe being conducted by the Punjab police in the Sidhu Moosewala murder case, a Mumbai police crime branch team has reached the northern state to ascertain the revelations.

Mumbai, India - July 22, 2022: Salman Khan outside CP Office after meeting Police Commissioner Vivek Phansalkar, at Crawford Market, in Mumbai, India, on Friday, July 22, 2022. (Video Grab/HT Photo) (Hindustan Times)

A senior police officer said that the four-member team, headed by an inspector and comprising two officers each from the Unit 9 and Anti-Extortion Cell, reached Punjab on Friday afternoon.

The officer said the team will interrogate the accused arrested by the Punjab police and try to verify the revelation - that they had conducted recce of the Panvel farmhouse of the actor.

The officer said the team will question the accused, and locally they will also try to verify and corroborate the information received from the accused and thereafter a decision will be taken on taking their custody.

Earlier this month, three suspects in Moose Wala’s killing were arrested from Nepal by the local authorities and handed over to the Punjab police.

One of them, Kapil Pandit, has claimed that he, along with two others conducted a recce of not just Khan’s house in Bandra but also his farmhouse in Panvel, to the extent of examining the roads leading to the farmhouse to identify an ideal assassination spot.

Against this backdrop, the threat case registered at Bandra police station was formally handed over to Unit 9 of the crime branch for investigation.

“The crime branch was anyways conducting a parallel investigation into the case but in view of the fresh claims and the fact that how detailed they are, the case was officially transferred to the crime branch on Tuesday,” said a senior officer with the Mumbai police.

Khan’s security was beefed up last month and a police vehicle was deployed outside his residence for several days after his father screenwriter Salim Khan found a threat note addressed to the father-son duo.

As per the police, on June 5, Salim Khan was on his daily morning walk on the Bandstand promenade along with his security. At 7.40 am, he sat on a bench for a break when his security personnel found a chit with the words, “Moosewala jaisa kar doonga (You will suffer the same fate as Moosewala).

Punjab singer-politician Sidhu Moosewala was shot dead in Mansa village last week by alleged members of the Lawrence Bishnoi gang. Earlier in 2018, Bishnoi had threatened Salman Khan when the blackbuck poaching case was in court. Lawrence, who belongs to the Bishnoi community, considers the blackbuck to be a sacred animal, and Salman’s involvement in poaching hurt the community’s sentiments.

A case was registered against an unknown person for allegedly issuing a threat to actor Salman Khan and his father Salim at Bandra police station. The Mumbai crime branch’s team visited Delhi and questioned Lawrence Bishnoi even and several others in the case but did not get anything in the case and no one has been arrested yet in the case.