Amritsar/Ahmedabad: Amritsar police have arrested six men in connection with the murder of social media influencer and LGBTQ personality Mad Sandhu, including the alleged shooter, Parminder Singh alias Kaka, in a joint operation with Gujarat cops.Police haven’t ruled out the possibility of gangster Goldy Dhillon’s involvement though the motive is yet to be ascertained.Mad Sandhu aka Madhusudan Singh was shot dead by motorcycle-borne assailants outside a car washing centre on Loharka Road in Amritsar on Oct 3. The killing shocked Punjab and his followers across the country.Amritsar Police commissioner Harmanbir Singh Gill said technical investigation, human intelligence and sustained tracking helped identify and trace the accused.According to Gill, the breakthrough came when investigators tracked a payment of Rs 16,000 from a foreign-based gangster network to the bank account of Kaka’s elder brother Amandeep, a resident of Lohian Khas village in Jalandhar.Amandeep passed on Rs 11,000 to Parminder, and the rest to the second shooter who is yet to be identified. Police picked up Amandeep. Kaka’s whereabouts were still unknown then.When Kaka reached out to his brother for money, police sent a payment QR code from Amandeep’s phone, tricking him into scanning it, which helped surveillance experts zero in on Kaka’s location in Gujarat, said Gill.Amritsar cops reached out to Ahmedabad crime branch, who nabbed Kaka on Wednesday evening. “Kaka was fleeing to Mumbai and had broken his journey in Ahmedabad. He was arrested from Vadaj locality,” a crime branch source said.Apart from the two brothers, the other arrested suspects are — Paramvir Singh and Baljinder Singh, who allegedly arranged the weapons, and Balraj Singh and Vikas Singh from Khalchia in Amritsar who recced Mad Sandhu for the murder. A police team has flown to Gujarat to formalise the arrests and bring them to Amritsar. The motive will be known after questioning the accused, police said.Police are probing individual roles and potential financial backers of the killing. Earlier, gangster Goldy Dhillon had claimed responsibility in a social media post, alleging that Mad Sandhu was “spoiling the new generation” with objectionable content. Police had earlier said the claims were being examined but their authenticity had not been established.Three months before his death, Mad Sandhu was involved in a dispute with Nihang Jathedar Manpreet Singh Khalsa, who had criticised his attire and online content. Amid the controversy, Mad Sandhu had clarified that he had addressed those concerns and old videos were being reshared out of context.On Thursday, when asked about the possible involvement of Goldy Dhillon in Mad Sandhu’s murder, CP Harmanbir Singh Gill said, “We do not rule out the possibility. This will emerge during the investigation. If his involvement is confirmed, we will seek his extradition.”
