In May 2020, when India was under the pandemic-induced lockdown, a video of popular Punjabi singer Sidhu Moosewala went viral. The 28-year-old singer was pictured firing an AK-47 rifle at a shooting range in the presence of a few Punjab Police personnel. The policemen in the video were subsequently suspended and Moosewala was booked under the Arms Act and the Disaster Management Act. A day after getting anticipatory bail in the case, Moosewala released another song on his YouTube channel, comparing himself to actor Sanjay Dutt, who was jailed under the Arms Act back in 1993.
Moosewala, the enfant terrible of the Punjabi music industry, was always unapologetic about his promotion of guns and gangs. Ironically, he was gunned down on May 29 in what was said to be a gang hit.
Born Shubhdeep Singh Sidhu in a Jat Sikh family in Punjab’s Mansa district, Moosewala went to Canada in 2016 after finishing his B.Tech degree. He released his first song, ‘G Wagon’, while he was in Canada. His first hit track, ‘So High’, came in August 2017. Moosewala’s irreverent take on life, his rivals and society added to his appeal. During the farmers’ agitation, he hit a defiant note by telling Delhi that Punjab was not like Kashmir, and could not be suppressed. His decision to join the Congress last December and to contest the assembly polls showed that the cultural icon was ready for the political track as well.
Moosewala’s murder happened after Punjab’s two-month-old Aam Aadmi Party government under Bhagwant Mann withdrew security cover to 424 people saying that it was doing away with the state’s ‘VIP culture’. Inexplicably, the government revealed the names of the 424, including Moosewala. He was shot dead a day after the names were made public.
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