THE GANGS OF PUNJAB

THE MOOSEWALA KILLING PRISES OPEN A LITTLE KNOWN BUT BUSTLING ECOSYSTEM OF ORGANISED CRIME IN PUNJAB THAT HAS LEFT ITS PUGMARKS GLOBALLY

- ANILESH S. MAHAJAN

IF THERE’S ONE THING about the new Punjab underworld the young and impressionable may find dangerously attractive, it’s the fact that it’s so overground. No member of this grey, rough-hewn aristocracy is hiding behind a cave, or in rocky boondocks, or behind assumed identities. Not one of them is a shrinking violet. They are all out there, strutting around in the open playground of social media—sporting typical gangsta monikers and DPs where they strike macho poses, gun in hand.

Punjabi rapper Sidhu Moosewala, who was shot dead in his black Mahindra Thar on May 29 in Jawaharke village of the southern district of Mansa, was no stranger to this world. In May 2020, a couple of videos that went viral showed him trying to get the hang of an AK-47 rifle, with the help of some friendly cops. A case under the Arms Act followed but did not deter him from releasing songs that cast a halo of swashbuckling derringdo around gun culture. Among his chart-toppers are songs with titles like ‘Mafia Style’, ‘Homicide’ and ‘Warning Shot’. Now, his killing has prised open a whole world the rest of India may not have heard of, although it has pugmarks across the globe—in Canada, the UK and other hotspots warmed by the presence of Punjabi NRIs. A transnational gangland ecosystem with ties to a bewildering cocktail of interests.