Punjab: Parents of fugitive terrorist Goldy Brar held in extortion case

As part of the Punjab government’s Gangstran Te Vaar (Attack on Gangsters) initiative against the terror-gangster syndicate, the Muktsar district police have arrested the parents of foreign-based designated terrorist Satinderjit Singh, alias Goldy Brar, in an extortion case.

Shamsher Singh and Pritpal Kaur were arrested from a hotel in Amritsar on Monday morning in connection with a December 2024 case where a school teacher in Udekaran village received death threats and a ransom demand of ₹50 lakh. While the caller identified himself as a member of the rival Devender Bambiha gang, investigators found a tactical alliance between that group and Brar’s network during the same period.

Police say that Shamsher Singh, a former Punjab Police assistant sub-inspector, who was compulsorily retired in 2021, and his wife had no legitimate source of income and were “surviving on proceeds of crime”, specifically ransom and extortion money. The couple is being produced in the Muktsar district court on Tuesday, where police will seek remand to further trace the financial trail and investigate if they acted as active conduits for Goldy Brar’s operations within the state.

Goldy Brar, a key figure behind the 2022 murder of Punjabi singer Sidhu Moosewala, was designated as an individual terrorist by the Centre in 2024. While he originally moved to Canada on a student visa in 2017, intelligence agencies believe he relocated to the California in US following the issuance of an Interpol Red Corner Notice. The long-standing partnership between Brar and jailed gangster Lawrence Bishnoi recently collapsed into a violent rift, with the two formerly close allies now heading rival factions and accusing each other of betrayal over the handling of legal cases and the murder of accomplices.

The latest police action comes under the state’s campaign that is also monitoring the families of overseas-based criminals to choke their financial pipelines.