Threat letter to Salman Khan: Mumbai police question Siddhesh Kamble held in Moosewala murder case

A Mumbai crime branch team, conducting a probe into a letter threatening actor Salman Khan and his father, reached neighbouring Pune city on Thursday and started interrogating Siddhesh Hiraman Kamble alias Mahakal, who was arrested in the case of murder of popular singer and Congress leader Sidhu Moosewala, an official said.

The police will also question Kamble about who kept the threatening letter at a bench in Bandra area of Mumbai on Sunday, he said. Kamble, who was arrested by the Pune rural police on Wednesday, is part of the Lawrence Bishnoi gang, the Maharashtra police earlier said.

On Thursday morning, a team led by Mumbai's Deputy Commissioner of Police (Crime) Sangramsingh Nishandar reached the Pune crime branch office and started interrogating Kamble, the official said.

The police are investigating whether the letter threatening writer Salim Khan and his actor son Salman Khan was kept on a bench in Mumbai by members of the Bishnoi gang.

On Sunday, Salman Khan's father and noted screenplay writer Salim Khan was sitting on a bench at the Bandra Bandstand after a morning walk when an unidentified man kept there a letter which mentioned a threat to kill him and his actor-son.

Later, with the help of his security personnel, Salim Khan contacted the police and an FIR was registered under section 506-II (criminal intimidation) of the Indian Penal Code at the Bandra police station. The police subsequently recorded the statements of Salim Khan and Salman Khan.

The police had arrested Kamble in connection with the killing of singer Moosewala in Punjab last month while another suspect and his close associate Santosh Jadhav, also from Pune in Maharashtra, has been identified as a shooter in the crime, officials said on Wednesday.

Kamble, against whom the stringent Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) had been invoked, was wanted by the Pune (rural) police for allegedly sheltering Jadhav, against whom a murder case was registered at Manchar police station in Pune in 2021.