Bishnoi acquitted in 2021 extortion case as complainant turns hostile

A Faridkot district court has acquitted jailed gangster Lawrence Bishnoi in a four-year-old extortion case as the complainant turned hostile in court.

The case dates to July 19, 2021, when an FIR was registered at the Kotkapura city police station on the complaint of Sumit Kumar, a garment shop owner, who alleged that he had received a ₹50 lakh extortion call from a person who identified himself as Goldy Brar, a close aide of Bishnoi. Kumar had stated that the extortion call was followed by a text message demanding the money.

The complainant had further alleged that on July 18, 2021, Brar had threatened to kill him and his family if they failed to pay up.

Based on his complaint, a case under Sections 387 (extortion), 506 (criminal intimidation) and 120-B (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code was registered.

The Faridkot police arrested Bishnoi on August 10, 2022.

During trial, the complainant Sumit stated that he did not furnish any statement before the police and claimed that the “police obtained his signatures on blank papers.”

He also stated that he does not know the accused Lawrence Bishnoi.

Stating that the prosecution had miserably failed to connect the accused in the commission of the alleged offence beyond the shadow of reasonable doubt, judicial magistrate Sherryl Sohi discharged Bishnoi of the criminal charges “by giving him the benefit of the doubt”.

Sohi further ordered the matter “to be taken up as and when accused Goldy Brar is arrested or produced by police or if he himself surrenders before the court.”

Satwinder Singh alias Goldy Brar, a fugitive believed to be in Canada, was pronounced a terrorist by the Union government for his alleged anti-India activities with pro-Khalistan extremist outfits.

Bishnoi, an alleged mastermind in the murders of Punjabi singer Sidhu Moosewala and the Mumbai-based Nationalist Congress Party politician Baba Siddique, is currently lodged in Sabarmati central prison in Ahmedabad.