The Punjabi Indian Gangster Rapper Killed in a Gang War: Moosewala
45:36 Share

ButcherBox, you guys have heard me talk about it before. It is a service that I used even before they were an advertiser because I like getting high-quality meat and seafood that I can trust online.

right to my door, 100% grass-fed beef, free-range organic chicken, pork-raised crate-free, and wild-caught seafood. We are only like a month and a half away from chili season. You're going to want to stock your freezer with a lot of meat that's not going to cost you that much at all. It's an incredible value. There's free shipping. You can curate it to customize your box plans, and it gets delivered right to your doorstep.

May 29th, 2022 in Punjab, India.

Shubdeep Singh Sidhu is riding high. Known as Mooseywala, the 28-year-old Punjabi rapper's most popular music video, So High, has just hit 500 million views. And he's also just released a haunting new music video for his track, The Last Ride, in homage to his favorite rapper and main influence, Tupac Shakur.

It's a fitting tribute full of gangster talk guns and a hearse with his patented Punjabi singing and lyrics mixing with a thumping West Coast rap bass line. Kind of bangs, like for real. In only five years, he's gone from an international engineering student in Ontario, Canada to a global sensation, racking up billions of YouTube views, hitting the charts and selling out shows in multiple countries. He's even been co-signed by the Prince of Canada himself, Drake.

♪♪

There's a reason he raps about guns and death and gangstership. In his home state of India's Punjab, there's gang wars raging and not a small amount of speculation that some of his people, the people close to him, are involved. That's one of the things his fan base loves about him, actually. He brings the reality of the underworld of rural Punjab, no stranger to violence, out in his lyrics. It's actually gotten him in trouble with the authorities, but we'll get to that in a bit.

His father would later say he's also been receiving extortion threats from a bunch of northern Indian gangsters, some real bad and well-known thugs. He leaves his house at 4.30 p.m. that day, and he's riding with his cousin and a neighbor, and he's going to see his aunt in a village maybe an hour and 90 minutes away. He elects not to go on his bulletproof ride, and he also isn't traveling with the bodyguards he's been assigned by the state.

Actually, only a day before, he saw his bodyguard count reduced from four to two due to some political maneuverings. His father and the two leftover commando bodyguards are following behind in a different car. What Musiwala doesn't realize is that he's had hired killers following him for months, waiting for the right opportunity, surveilling him, casing all his locations.

One of these recon guys calls up the ganglord calling the shots and lets him know that Moosey Waller is looking vulnerable. And that ganglord then tells his shooters to make their move. About an hour after he left, just when Moosey Waller and crew pull into his aunt's village, a car pulls in front of him. Then another car pulls behind him right away, boxing him in. There's nowhere to run.

There's four men in each car and they're all shooters. One of them jumps out in front of Musiwala's SUV and starts lighting it up with an AN-94 Russian assault rifle. Musiwala fires back with a pistol, but he can't do much. The shooters unleash hell, lighting up the car 30 times. Musiwala is hit 19 times, his other two passengers wounded.

The gunmen check to make sure he's dead, then speed off. His father gets there shortly after and tries to bring him to the hospital, but he's already dead. Protests follow. People are angry all over the country, and superstars all over India, and even Drake, offer condolences.

♪♪

Guys, we are back. I am your host, Danny Gold, along with my co-host, Sean Williams. We are two journalists that have worked all over the world, and every week, we bring you stories of global organized crime and all the fun stuff that goes with it while teaching you not to claim responsibility for felonies you've committed on Facebook.

Or claim responsibility on Facebook for felonies you've committed. Don't do either one of those. As always, patreon.com slash the underworld podcast to keep us afloat. There's merch at underworldpod.com slash merch. Sponsorships, tips, all that, the underworldpodcast at gmail.com. I am once again not spending my summer overlooking the Mediterranean, so that means we need to actually get those numbers up. And Sean, I mean, you've been on like, what, 15 vacations since we started this summer? Something like that, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah. But also, you did some great bonuses, you know, getting to the bottom of who killed that narco monkey. Narco monkey, that's a real thing that exists.

And you just are about to do an interview with the Hot Money podcast team. You know, for the price of one cup of coffee, you can keep us going before I give up on everything and get these awesome bonus features. And we're on Instagram, YouTube. One of these days, maybe we'll even get someone to start a TikTok because I just I can't be bothered to get involved with more, you know? No, no, Jesus. I can't even deal with Twitter, man. It's making me need another holiday this week.

Yeah, we've got loads of stuff. I mean, I've got a big story coming out about Vladimir Putin, you know, Nazis, a double agent, gangster, pimp guy coming out in a couple of days when we're recording this. So, yeah, we'll probably do a little follow up on that. There's this parrot smuggler thing in Berlin, investigative reporters, internet scammers. I don't know. The Patreon's moving almost as much as my roller case these days. So, yeah, we've got stuff going on.

Yeah, yeah. So Moosey Walla, right? This is a crazy story. I had seen, I think, a couple of news reports on it, but a couple people reach out on the Patreon and IG about the killing right when it happens. And you know, when the sick Scott himself starts tweeting about it or Instagram about whatever he did, you know it's time to get involved.

So we've done some stuff before, I think, on the Mumbai underworld. D Company was one of our first episodes that Sean did. And Sean, you've been reporting there in real life, right? Like in India on gang shit there. Yeah, it was a fun time. God, that's a long time ago now. I was in Mumbai for like a month, ages and ages back, doing some stuff on D Company. Found some guy that was like an out-of-work hitman that kind of just sat around because no one wanted hitmen anymore. They were doing all like internet scams. That's pretty sad, right?

that's how it goes these days yeah but yeah we need to do more about India there's so much shit going on I didn't know anything about this either so yeah I'm keen on this one

And it does get a lot of attention, I think, both in Bollywood and gangland circles, the Mumbai stuff. And of course, you know, I am unapologetically a fan of Shantaram. So that's going on. But the northern Indian underworld and that around the capital city of New Delhi, I don't think that gets nearly enough attention, at least in international circles. So it was interesting to learn about it through this assassination, essentially.

And we did a wild story on the wild Indo-Canadian gangs of Surrey and Vancouver, where there's a big connection to the Punjab community. And I actually, I thought this would involve some of that, but it's only loosely connected. But definitely go back and listen to that episode on Vinny Johal. And of course, I think I've been promising some folks we're going to do a second episode on Punjab.

On Brothers Keepers and all that sort of United Nations gangs in Vancouver, which I think has a lot of that as well. So Moosey Walla, actually, he didn't really come up in Canada, right? He didn't go to Canada until he was an adult in 2016. And he went to Brampton, Ontario, not Vancouver, Surrey.

He's born in 1993 in Punjab, India, in the Musa village in Mansa district. And his name is actually a tribute to his village. His dad was a laborer, a small farmer. He owned about three acres of land. And he was also in the army at one point. He was basically a farmer. And his mother, she eventually gets elected as a local leader in their village, but not until 2018.

But he grows up in a rural area in the farmlands, and that's an important part of who he is and what his music is all about. Here's a quote from a BBC article. His songs offered unvarnished commentary on the dark underbelly of the rural heartland, where drugs, crime, and corruption often make headlines. Yeah, and Wallace is like somebody in charge of something, right? Like the boss, I think. But Punjabi listeners, feel free to leave angry comments wherever you find this podcast.

Yeah, and wherever my pronunciation is off, because, you know, it's going to be. And personally, though, I'd love me some, like, dark underbelly of the Royal Heartland. Give me that winter's bone shit. But I just want to add, too, we use a ton of sources from the Indian media, the English language sources there. The Hindustan Times, the Quint, the Print, India Tribune, all that. The source list, as always, will be up on the Patreon. So, yeah, his music, it's actually, it's really interesting. It's all in Punjabi.

even though the song titles are in English. And it kind of blends this traditional Punjabi pop influence with just straight up West Coast bass lines and hip hop. So the sound, you know, it does that. And the lyrics too, it's kind of got these 90s era G-funk beats a little. It kind of reminds me,

If you ever heard the Nas track, Get Down, there's a part when he switches up to this West Coast beat and it sounds a lot like that. And he's got this haunted way of singing and rapping. It just goes really well together. It's kind of fire. And there's a reason that Drake co-signed him.

So the lyrics and music videos, they combine this influence too. You know, it's all about big black SUVs, guns, money. I think he's got an AK tatted on his arm and dollar signs too. And Northern India, Punjab, Delhi, all that apparently has a really bad violence problem. Gangs, crime. It's not just in the cities. A big part of it is in rural areas too. And he was apparently one of the first musical artists from the region to really go into that and combine this influence

you know, the hip hop world with the Punjabi influence and it made him into a fast rising global superstar. And I kind of wanted to go into a little bit of that just to show the significance of him getting killed before going into the details of this gang war. Here's a quote from the BBC again.

Punjab has always had an unsavory side, involving gritty gangster lore of big bosses, godfathers, their middlemen, and thugs. The violence, experts say, largely stems from turf battles between them. Underlying issues like corruption and rising unemployment have strengthened their reign over the state's cities and villages. These gangsters also have a huge cultural footprint.

The intertwined nature of the music industry and gang-related crimes in Punjab is largely accepted as common knowledge, says Ravindra Singh Robin, a senior journalist in Amritsar City. And here's a headline and a lead from an outlet called The Scroll. How Sidhu Muswala's celebration of royal life won him legions of fans in Punjab and far beyond.

The rapper gave voice to the dreams and predicament of young people living through an agrarian and social crisis. Wow. And yeah, generally I kind of shy away from anything that I feel like overly intellectualizes stuff like this, but it's pretty interesting. You know, it wasn't just guns and violence. He did a lot of, quote, putting the focus on the burning issues of an agrarian society in the throes of transition. Okay. Yeah. Calm down, Pitchfork.

I mean, it is fascinating to see it described that way. Yeah, man. I mean, to give a shout out to one of my favorite books ever, like Behind the Beautiful Forevers as well by Catherine Boo. It's about this kind of small time political corruption, stuff that goes on not just in the cities, but the rural areas of India. And I would recommend anyone read that. But moving on.

Yeah, I haven't, but I want to now. And, you know, India, of course, had those massive farmer protests a few years ago about new agricultural laws that were going to screw over the farmers. And Pooja has a huge agricultural industry. And Moosey Walla was one of the first artists to really give full-throated support to it. He even released a movie about farmers. The poster is him riding on a tractor, doing a wheelie with big speakers on the back, which is, you know, that's pretty sick. The guy who Bubba Sparks could have been, I guess. Yeah.

You know, I was going to make a Bubba Sparks reference here, and I didn't know if people would get it, but I'm really glad that you did. Yo, Bubba Sparks, I mean, some of those, when Deliverance came out, like, there were some bangers on that. It's not bad. No, it wasn't. He had the Timberland beats. Like, it was legit. It was definitely, there's going to be a lot of people Googling Bubba Sparks after this. Sparks has three X's at the end, but I'm telling you, it goes. Yeah.

So yeah, he spoke up in favor of farmers a few times. He was actually something of an environmentalist too. You know, there's big problems there with pesticides and cancer rates and all that. And it all factors in when he goes back to India and gets involved with politics. But we'll get to that in a bit. But back to his life. Born in rural Punjab, India, son of a farmer. We don't know too much about how he grew up, but he ends up getting a degree in electrical engineering. Then he moves to Canada, Brampton, Ontario, right outside Toronto. He's an international student.

While in Canada, he starts making music. And his blend of hip-hop with Punjabi influence, you know, he releases this track, this first track in 2017. It's called, of course, G-Wagon. And he also pens some lyrics for a popular Punjab-Canadian artist called Ninja. And then his first track to blow up is called So High. And it now has 530 million views on YouTube. So, yeah, I can also confirm that it's hard as shit. Like, it bangs...

I'll just wait for that annoying thing. No, leave that European siren in, man. Dale, leave that in. I was going to say, like, I've been listening to loads of his stuff today and I didn't know much about him. But yeah, I can confirm that So High is an absolute tune. Yeah, his stuff, his stuff, it goes, you know, it really does. Yeah.

And from there, it's just straight running, right? He gets huge really, really quick with fan bases in India, in the UK, Canada, New Zealand, the US, and in no time, he's the biggest figure in the Punjabi hip-hop scene, which, you know, it sounds kind of ridiculous to say that, but Punjabis are a large ethnic group. I think there's something like 125 million across the world. He charts in the UK and Canada, and by the time he's murdered, he's released three albums and 60 singles in his four-year run. Ah.

But again, maybe we should just focus on the Punjabi audience for this show then. I'd love to. But he's not without controversy. Like I said earlier, we got into the whole gangland scene of Indo-Canadian Punjabis in the episode on Bindi Johal, and some of that stuff follows Moose around. In 2019, he's banned from a festival in Surrey because of concerns about violence. The

The Canadian police had advised the festival organizers to drop him because at some of his previous concerts there had been incidents like a stabbing in Surrey Banquet Hall and a shooting in Calgary. And the festival organizers in response, they say it's racist and

and call Moose the Drake of Surrey. I've also seen him call the Tupac of Punjabi, and he always talked about Tupac as a huge influence, so you can kind of hear that in his music, too. Yeah, I don't know, like the Biggie of Brampton, or the Mobb Deep of Mississauga? Am I missing any? That's not bad.

Sean, that's not bad, man. All right, cool. That's not bad at all. I've got that music gig sometime. You got a gift. Yeah, he also stirs up some trouble in India. In 2020, 2021, you know, he's huge now. He moves back to India and gets involved in politics. His mother had run for a political position in his village in 2018 and won. It's a pretty small position, though. I think she won by like 600 votes.

Meanwhile, while living there, he gets charged with a bunch of crimes. He has legal cases against him for using guns, violating curfews, and for his lyrics for promoting violence and disobedience to peace, things like that. He has this weird relationship with the police. There's also a viral video of him with police at a firing range being taught to fire an AK-47, and that gets him and the cops in trouble as well.

When he came home, he joins the Indian National Congress Party, and he runs to be a member of parliament in 2022, but he actually loses despite his superstardom and releases an angry song calling the people who didn't vote for him traitors. And there's actually a conspiracy theory I've seen about the government letting Moosey get killed because he was this famous Punjabi Sikh who was advocating for their rights, and every so often he was doing so in a militant fashion. And

And as we'll discuss in a minute, you know, that's been an issue there for decades. You know, now there's absolutely no evidence of this conspiracy at the moment, but it's indicative of the mind state and why he was such a rallying point. Without getting too far into it, I do get a little deeper in the Bindi episode. And this is actually from that. It's from a 2020 academic paper called The Legacies of Bindi Joe Hall, The Contemporary Folk Devil or Sympathetic Hero.

Quote, Sikhism was founded in the 16th century northern India as the distinct religion for majority Hindu and Muslim population. While living relatively peacefully, Sikh warriors emerged in the 17th century to fight against the reigning Mughal Empire and their often violent campaigns of forced conversion to Islam.

This signified the transformation of Sikhs from a passive and relatively peaceful religion to that of the religious warrior or soldier. The image of the warrior Sikh became an important symbol and has been appropriated by some when perceived cultural and religious threats arise. And then...

In the 80s, there's something called the Khalistan or Khalistani movement, which was Sikhs advocating for a separate state in Punjab state, India, because they were a marginalized group. And it led to violence and attacks by both the government on Sikhs and the Sikh groups, including the assassination of Indira Gandhi and brutal retaliations against that. That was at the high point as well. And Moose had made reference to it in some of his music. Yeah, I guess it's probably worth saying as a counterpoint because...

In my experience of cricket, Twitter, Indian social media is a vibe, man. So one of India's longest serving leaders is Mahmood Singh, who's a Punjabi Sikh. And yeah, I guess if minorities are getting screwed in India, it's definitely the Muslims. But tough history. And I'll just throw in the Amritsar massacre if I'm going to take my routine dump on the Brits as well.

Yeah, and there was the Golden Temple thing, right? I think Indira Gandhi ordered that, where they went in and killed a bunch of people. Not great, yeah. So, yeah. I mean, if you want more about this, or an actual non-service level understanding, go read a book. Seriously, I mean, don't. We're not going to give it to you. Definitely read books on the issue and brush up on that. But let's talk about gang wars in Punjab, and some of the kingpins, including those who allegedly killed Musiwala.

The gang at the center of the Musiwala killing is the Lawrence Bishnoi gang, headed by Lawrence Bishnoi. And this guy is a gang lord, even though his real name's Lawrence. So, yeah, there we go. He has reportedly 700 soldiers under him. And they do your run-of-the-mill extortion, bootleg liquor sales, fun things like that. This is from the print in an article about deadly prison gangs since Bishnoi's actually locked up and has been since 2017. Quote,

These gangs extort money from their targets by killing their close aides, blackmail them by showing videos of their shootings, and issue threats through social media profiles. Oh, yeah, we're gonna get to that, don't worry. Continuing, they mostly target builders, businessmen, and contractors, and those with illegal money who are already vulnerable.

Saddam El-Aziz Gari, a sharpshooter who ran an extortion racket, showed his victims videos of his shootings to scare them. They also gunned down associates of businessmen and property dealers to send a warning to the main target, another senior police official said. I kind of like the language they used too, like, um...

You know, shooters, they call them sharpshooters, like the hired assassins. And aides, like they call everyone an aide, like someone who's like, you know, close to somebody or a business partner is an aide, which I thought was interesting. And these gangs, they also, they're involved with like illegal liquor. There's money laundering, extortion involved in the music industry and something called Kabadi or Kadabi. Oh, Kabadi's cool.

So Kabaddi is this game where you have to, it's like rugby, but you have to hold your breath or you have to say Kabaddi while you're like running past people or something. You have to always be saying the word Kabaddi while you're running around. You can't like get the fuck out of here, man. It's true. I mean,

I don't know anything more than that, so I'm going to need to do a bit of Googling. You just have to yell the word? Yeah, it's like Kabaddi, Kabaddi, Kabaddi. How do you get penalized for that? Get the fuck out of here. That sounds awesome. I want to gamble on that. You know, I can't get back into gambling. Actually, moving on. Patreon.com, which is the only world podcast, so I can get into gambling on Kabaddi. Let's make it happen.

One interesting note is that a lot of these gangs, at least the ones involved here, what's going to play a very big role in their story and this story as well is that they're involved with student politics. Or they kind of get their main starts in these university political battles that have rival candidates getting beat up and shot at and sometimes murdered, which is wild. Because I kind of feel like, I mean, in the U.S., nobody really gives a shit usually about student politics on that intense of a level. I mean, I guess back in the day, you had the SDS and things like that.

And there's still a lot of cultural war BS on them now, but not to the level where like gangsters are involved or where people get like marked, you know, globally, I guess lots of radicalism and stuff like that comes out of university politics sometimes. I mean, I guess in England, maybe it's a little different, Sean. Yeah. I mean, when I was at uni, we were just slinging Molotovs through MPs like windows and tearing down statues and it was all masks and tear gas and shit. Nah, I mean, we were just getting, we were just getting messed up on drugs and alcohol, but yeah,

interesting parallel i mean here to the nigerian gangs as well they came straight off the campuses so yeah i mean i guess we're just uh i don't know small fry compared to these fellas

Well, I guess I'm conflating two things right, too. There's like there's like actual political violence and then there's like gangsters doing this stuff. So, yeah, they were they were more on the on the I'm just being straight up gangsters on that tip. But yeah, you know, I digress. And the best write up I found of Bishnoi's life is from the Hindu dot com. He's born in 1992 and he actually gets educated at like a convent boarding school.

His family had a decent amount of money, especially for rural Punjab. They're from a really small, sleepy village, but it's a well-to-do family known for, quote, good conduct and affluence. There's Zamindars, I guess, which is a landowner. So he's a nice, well-behaved boy in the village. Like, you know, who isn't? But then he heads to the city and he gets really into sports, primarily running the 1500 meter race. And he starts the train at Punjab University.

He ends up befriending some kids who were also in sports, you know, bodybuilding, all that, many of whom's parents were cops. And from there, they start to form like a little gang with his brothers, his cousins, his friends, and all that. And they're doing their little crimes here and there. And one of his boys, who goes by the name of Robin Brar, he runs for student elections at the Student Organization of Punjab University, or I think SOPU is what they call it, in 2008.

Yeah, I mean, firstly, it's pretty depressing that we're doing full bios of gangsters that are, like, way younger than us.

But I mean, like he's got to be the first gangster on this show. Sport of choice was middle distance running. I mean, that's pretty weird. All his mates are like lifting weights and playing cricket. He's doing laps. Yeah. Bit of a dark horse. Yeah. But, but fast, you know, you can make those getaways. Well, yeah. If your mates are shooting all the competitors, I guess it's all right.

Yeah. He gets out of jail, his friend loses the election, he then shoots the winning candidate's brother and gets locked up again, and continues connecting with more criminals, and this kind of starts this pattern. Basically, he gets into fights at his university or other universities, does short-term jail stints, meets other gangsters, makes deals, networks, all that.

He actually then runs for election himself in the soap who loses beats and breaks the legs of his rival, get fucked up again, gets out, goes and fights people at other colleges. He runs again in 2011 and he wins, but like, I'm sorry, bro. But if you care that much about student politics, like you're a dork, that's a Melissa Simpson ass gangster right there. Bleeding gums, Bishnoi.

Yeah, and I think the whole thing with him doing all these crimes and getting out, I think that kind of alludes to what you were saying with the corruption. I think also that mention of all his friends' parents being cops. So I think there's a lot of bribery or just being in the know, having money, and getting out after committing crimes.

By this point, his gang is really growing, and he's making enemies all over and getting a reputation. In 2012, he gets out of university, but his gang still has beef all over, and they start getting more and more weapons to protect themselves, and he still maintains control over university politics. You know, he's putting up his fellow gang members as candidates for elections. In 2013, he guns down a guy who defeats his friend in an election. I think it was a municipal one at that point, not even a student one, and he goes on the run.

Shortly after, his cousin, who's involved in the illegal liquor deal situation, he gets murdered and Lauren starts going after everyone involved. Illegal liquor is actually a big business there, by the way. And here's a write-up of his next few years from the Hindu. Quote,

According to the police, in the summer of 2014, Bishno had his first armed encounter with the police. On their way to visit the Salasar Balaji Temple in Churu, Rajasthan, Bishno and his gang rammed through the barricades of a checkpoint and opened fire at police personnel.

Yeah, I mean, okay, a couple of things here. Firstly, this guy, he's a total nerd. He can't get anyone to be his friend. He's going around beating everyone up, trying to get votes to be student...

Big dog. And then also these quotes are from the police. Like they're saying he's just openly plotting the murder of his rivals. Like maybe they should be keeping him in prison. They're like, yeah, he got away with a lie and we couldn't really hold him down. He just keeps writing all these charts, like crossing people's names off.

So yeah, he's getting huge. He's now operating in Delhi, which is New Delhi, India's capital, and the whole metro area is a population of like 30 million. I mean, there's money there, right? He starts working with like real deal mafias, bigger bootleggers. He's arrested though in 2017, but that doesn't slow him down. Says media outlet The Prince, be

Bichon would call up his associates outside the prison to order hits on rivals, demand ransom from musicians and sports personalities, and make plans to escape from jail for some of his friends, a source said. God, I mean, these police, Jesus Christ. He currently has 20 cases registered against him, including attempt to murder, extortion, snatching, I don't even know what snatching is, carjacking, and other cases under the arms act. To give an example of how big he is and how wild...

There's this 2018 story involving huge Bollywood star Salman Khan, who was one of the biggest actors or was, I don't know, in India. He's big. So decades ago, I think in the late 90s, Khan kills an Indian antelope known as the black buck, which is illegal to do. It's poaching. And this particular animal is held sacred by some Hindu, Indian, and Nepali villagers. It's held especially sacred among the Bishnoi community, which Lawrence is a part of, I guess,

The Bishnois are like a sect or a clan anyway, and the Black Book is particularly revered by them. Khan killing this envelope was, I mean, it is a huge story. It's still in the courts like decades later because of appeals. At one point, he gets a five-year jail term, which gets appealed. He gets found innocent, then guilty, appeals, serves a few weeks and a few days here and there.

Bishnoi was so pissed about it that him and an associate made a rather serious death threat against Khan. Like one of his lieutenants is actually apparently was actively plotting it out when he was caught. And then it turns up in the interrogation. Yeah, man. Salman Khan is massive in India. He's like the Tom Cruise of India. And he's got previous too. I think if I'm not wrong, he ran someone down in his car while he was high or drunk or something. And he managed to get off a bit like this shooting. Yeah.

um i'm sure that's correct uh there's no slander in podcasting anyway right yeah quite a few controversies but like that's a pretty wild controversy for for an actor like a legal illegal poaching you know it's nuts i think bishnoi i think bishnoi might be a cast actually technically but i'm not sure again yeah people could yeah it was uh it seemed like a movement at times you know i i couldn't uh lock down you know the specific cast and

So, yeah, the guy's got shooters. Says the print, quote, these gangsters mostly use rifles to carry out high-profile murders. The Bishnoi gang is known to shower bullets at the target. They carry out these killings for two motives. Eliminating rival gang members, which, I mean, yeah. And to send a message to potential rivals and others from whom they want to extort money.

The idea is to make it look gruesome. They then claim responsibility on social media to establish their power, the Delhi police source said. The Delhi police source said. I feel like there should be a catchphrase about this social media stuff somewhere. Yeah, yeah. underworldpod.com slash merch. Don't Instagram your crimes.

Nice. Because gang, they also make a lot of money, like I said, from the Punjabi pop music scene and from, from Kadabi, Kabaddi, which is, what is it again? Kabaddi, Kabaddi, yeah. Yeah. It kind of reminds me of the early rap scene, you know, when you had all sorts of gangsters and crews running labels and using it to wash profits, extorting artists and all that. That was like a big thing in the 80s and 90s. And who knows, maybe it still is. So where does Muswala come into all this and how does he end up mixed up in it?

Actually, I should point out that his family has denied he had any connection to organized crime, and his father claims Vishnu and co. were making extortion attempts on him, and that he wasn't actually involved in the gangster life. But, you know, this is becoming the accepted story, the story I'm about to tell right now, both from the police and the media, and there's a lot of evidence that points to it.

The Bishnoi gang, they've been fighting a turf war over the last few years with another gang called the Davinder Bambia gang. And that's involved a lot of tit-for-tat killings. Here's like some sample quotes from the Hindustan Times. He had killed, brought, or avenged the murder of Lavi Diora. The Bambia group associate was killed by members of the Bishnoi gang at a fair in Katkapura in 2017.

In response, a Facebook page in the name of jail gangster Lawrence Bishnoi threatened retaliation and bloodshed on the streets. To avenge Gurlal's murder, the Bishnoi group killed a former student leader, Rajit Singh Rana, in Muxar in October, and Faridid Youth Congress President Gurlal Singh Pahalwan in February this year. And these aren't even the murderers that are at the center of this gang war right now.

So two of the men that are killed in this tit-for-tat thing are really close associates of Bishnoi, including the political leader of a youth wing of the party that beat out Muswala in the election, and the brother of Bishnoi's main lieutenant, a man by the name of Goldie Brar. Goldie's brother was killed in that situation, you know, and then the political, in 2020, and the political leader's called in 2021. The Mambia group actually claimed responsibility for some of the murders on Facebook. And Goldie's actually based in Canada,

He's wanted for a lot of crimes in India, but he's been in Canada since 2017 and he went there on a student visa. And the weirdest thing, I can't pin down where he is or what's going on. I think he's just free in Canada or in hiding there. I couldn't find any info on his whereabouts. I don't think he's locked up, though India is filing, there's an Interpol red notice and they're filing extradition orders because he's wanted for a ton of crimes there.

And there's a Facebook post going around from Goldie's account, allegedly claiming responsibility for the killing of Musiwala and saying it was motivated by revenge. Goldie was apparently the one tasked with arranging the hit on Musiwala since he was in Canada and he was using WhatsApp calls, which apparently make it harder for the Indian police to tap his calls. Yeah, I mean, we get accused of like being too soft on crime on this podcast, but maybe we can actually...

Find Goldie. Have we got the power to do that these days? Do we have the listeners? Can we find this guy? I don't think I want to get wrapped up in a northern Indian gang war. That's something you can get involved with. You don't want to be a cop? Wait, do we? I get accused of being too hard on it sometimes because you get accused of being too soft too. Yeah, too soft. We're friends with gangsters apparently, according to the ones I've seen the last few days. I mean...

We do have that trip to Portugal that hopefully kicks off. Where's my man at? However, man, I'm going to try to get in contact with you. Anyway, according to these guys in the Bisnoi gang, Musiwala's name comes up in the investigations of these murders, which, again, not proven. And because he was rich and famous and connected, the police don't follow the leads. Now, according to the print, Musiwala's manager is a quote, Shangun Preet was named in this killing, but is said to have fled the country and is believed to be in Australia currently.

Shang-Un Preet had reportedly arranged for the stay of the shooters, who were allegedly working for Lucky Patial, a leader of the Bambija gang. Devinder Bambija, the gang's founder, and whose name it still goes by, was killed in an encounter in 2016. So to catch us up to speed, Tiff attacked killings between two gangs running over turf. One of the gangs claims Moosey Wall and his manager are involved, so they target him. Though a friend told the prince the whole thing was over extortion, but I guess, you know, the evidence is pointing to that. Yeah.

So an article in the print again reads, Sachin Tapan Bishnoi, a cousin of Kuldeep Bishnoi, had said in an interview with News 18 that he had killed Moosewala with his own hands, claiming that the Punjabi singer had given shelter and financial support to Midukera's killers. And that's the youth politician that was popped. You know, this is...

I don't know. I mean, I don't, I can't, I wasn't able to really look into all these, all these various media outlets in India and whether they're, you know, a version of like the Daily Express or whether they're legit. These guys, like they're not just Instagramming their crimes. Shirtsavailable.uneworldpod.com. Don't Instagram your crimes. They're like fucking Facebook posting their confessions and like giving interviews to news outlets on their motivations.

Look, and again, I don't know the reputation of some of these outlets. Like, could it all be nonsense? Maybe. But these guys are definitely out there wilding just straight up like I did this thing all over social media without a care about the police at all. Man, I mean, it doesn't sound like they need to have much of a care about the police, to be honest. But yeah, this is straight up trap stuff. It's pretty crazy. It's pretty wild.

So yeah, the Bishnoi Goldie Braw gang decides Moose Walla has to die, and they really meticulously plan it. I mean, this is a professional operation. They actually have what they call a sharpshooter on it six months before, but he can't get to Moose Walla because he's too protected.

So eventually they send a number of shooters there. They have recce teams, all that surveilling his home. They're doing legit recon. There's hideouts. Some of the different groups don't know each other. It's real professional shit, like not sloppy gang hit stuff. Then at this point, they're staying right near the village too. On the day he got hit, May 29th, they actually get word that he's vulnerable. Moose had had four bodyguards, commandos it says, assigned by the government to protect him.

But literally a day before, the government decides to scale back protection of about 400 VIPs, they claim, to get rid of this culture of VIPs getting special treatment. Yeah, solid logic there. That sounds like it's going to work really well.

I mean, you know, if you're a rapper and a like involved in this stuff, you should have your own security. So his security details cut from four to two. It was also the opposing party that he ran against that, that did this. So of course, you know, this feels the theories. And on that day, when he's driving to his aunt's house, he's in a car without his bodyguards and the two group of shooters, they block him in and they just light up the car. That's from, from the cold open. So,

Strangely, neither his cousin or neighbor in the car were killed. They were wounded despite there being 30 shots fired and 19 hitting moose, which kind of, I don't know, maybe these guys really were sharpshooters, but that kind of sticks my antenna up a little bit. His dad followed behind him. He actually recovers the body, and he does take him to the hospital, but it's too late. And the reaction is crazy. According to the BBC, quote, the murder has whipped up a political storm in the state.

With opposition leaders criticizing the government, the state police claim that a Canada-based gangster claimed responsibility for the attack. The Moosey-Wallace family has denied this and criticized the police for not doing its job properly. In the middle of all this, protests erupted in several parts of the state as the singer's fans and supporters took to the streets, prompting the government to appeal for calm. The state's chief minister has now ordered a high court-level investigation into the case.

Police have arrested, I think, 20 or so guys. They're all connected to these gangs. You know, they found grenades, grenade launchers, electric detonators, assault rifles at one of the hideouts, and allegedly a message from one of the shooters to Goldie Brar saying the deed is done. And that's kind of where we are right now. You know, Goldie's in the wind. Bishnoi's locked up and has been for years, but still not cooperating. And the family says that he currently can't find a lawyer.

Meanwhile, Moose Wallace's family says Bishnoi is just a pawn and they're alluding to a bigger conspiracy. And in Moose Wallace's last video, released when he was alive a month ago or so, which was called The Last Ride, which makes all the reference to Tupac, it contains the line, the funeral will happen in youth, referring to himself.

And Muswala, you know, actually there was a song just released after his death that has now been banned from streaming platforms in India because it has militant Sikh lyrics and addresses issues like the killing of former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, which was done by a Sikh terrorist, the attack on the Sikh Golden Temple by the Indian government, the release of Sikh political prisoners. You know, he's going after the AAP party for fighting with his people. It's demanding sovereignty for Punjab, which, you know, all this is going to feed into the theories that he was silenced

When I think the most obvious answer is that, you know, this is part of this gang war. Yeah, man, for real. This is like, I mean, you know, we're not, we're not going to condone those kind of like communal violence lyrics, but yeah,

But I've been listening to this guy all day. People should check him out. Boy has skills. Like he was, he's, he's got decent tunes behind him. No. Yeah. Yeah. It's a, he's a really talented musician. I kind of like, you know, the singing that goes with it, it feels haunting to me. So when you're talking about, about, you know, gang warfare and death and all that, I think it really goes with it. Well, I honestly think it, give him another six months, a year, he would have been collaborating, you know, with like, with, with Drake, with other musicians,

With other rappers, too. And it would have been something. But yeah, anyway, let us know if we got some things wrong about Sikh history and everything else. I know my dude at Six Buzz, one of these guys who really documents the... I want to get his Instagram name right because he's filming on some stuff right here. And he really documents the gang wars that are going on, which are all over the world. There's killings in Thailand, too. This is the Indo-Canadian gang wars.

which are really wild, and his account is great. And he was going to send me some stuff, but I think he got too busy. It's, yeah, 6IXADEMICSTV. Interesting dude. Anyway, patreon.com, so that's the Underworld Podcast. If you yell at us there, we'll actually take what you have to say seriously. Merch, all that. Hit us up. Tips, ads, sponsorships, invitations to visit you if you're on the Mediterranean coast.

The Underworld Podcast at gmail.com. Until next week, take care. See ya.