Anmol Bishnoi, the younger brother of jailed gangster Lawrence Bishnoi, has been arrested by the authorities in the United States, PTI reported on Thursday.
Anmol Bishnoi is being held at Pottawattamie County Jail in Iowa, as per information available on the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement website. It does not give details about the date of the arrest or the charges that he faces.
Anmol Bishnoi is believed to have been living in Canada, from where he frequently travelled to the United States. His brother Lawrence Bishnoi is being held at Sabarmati Central Jail in Gujarat’s Ahmedabad.
Anmol Bishnoi is wanted for the murder of former Maharashtra minister Baba Siddique in October and for the shooting incident outside Bollywood actor Salman Khan’s Mumbai home in April.
Siddique was shot dead allegedly by three men in Mumbai’s Bandra East area on the evening of October 12. Shubham Lonkar, an alleged member of Lawrence Bishnoi’s group, had in a social media post claimed responsibility for the killing.
Lonkar said that Siddique was killed because of his close relationship with Khan and alleged connections to members of the underworld, including fugitive gangster Dawood Ibrahim.
India had earlier sought the extradition of Anmol Bishnoi, while the National Investigation Agency had offered a Rs 10 lakh reward for information leading to his arrest, reported PTI.
On November 18, United States Department of State spokesperson Matthew Miller declined to comment on the possibility of Anmol Bishnoi’s extradition, claiming that the matter fell under the jurisdiction of the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
A lookout circular was issued for Anmol Bishnoi in April after he claimed responsibility for the shooting outside Salman Khan’s residence.
In August 2022, the National Investigation Agency filed a first information report against nine individuals, including the Bishnoi brothers, for conspiring to “raise funds, recruit youth to carry out terrorist acts in the Union Territory of Delhi and other parts of the country”, in addition to the “targeted killings of prominent persons”.
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