World Of Secrets - The Killing Call: 4. Making enemies

Episode Date: June 10, 2025

Back home, Sidhu starts delving into Punjab’s violent past and singing about its place in modern India. He joins mass demonstrations which rock Delhi and writes a protest anthem for the movement. The death threats continue. And we find out that Sidhu is making friends with dangerous people. Presented by broadcaster and DJ Bobby Friction and investigative journalist Ishleen Kaur.Season 8 of World of Secrets, The Killing Call, is a BBC Eye investigation for the BBC World Service. Archive audio credits: Sidhu Moose Wala, Jhonty Dhillon, Ritesh Lakhi, Times Now.Here’s a link to the BBC Eye two-part documentary films, which we recommend you watch after listening to this podcast: https://bit.ly/thekillingcall If you are in the UK, you can watch on iPlayer: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002f18y

Before we start, don't forget there are seven previous seasons of World of Secrets. They're available right now and are waiting for you once you've finished this episode. It's 21st September and I'm actually here to celebrate my husband's 40th birthday. And I'm actually here to celebrate my husband's 40th birthday. I'm on a beach. The monsoon season's just ending. And it's hot. But all around me, it's green and lush. It's over a year since we started this investigation into the killing of the Punjabi rapper Sidhu

Musayala. And I'm taking a break. We're staying in a house on the beach, a small group of us, just family. And then something happens that I'm not expecting. I'd been chasing Goldie Brown for weeks and weeks and weeks and then I received a call. I spoke with someone. I know, right? I was like, my heart was in my mouth.

They said they're gonna get back to me in a week or so. Still feels so close yet so far. Before he hangs up, the voice says, we're going to send you something. You'll get it in the next few hours. My mind raises, what can it be? Will I finally be able to speak to Goldie Bra? The international fugitive who's wanted for murder in India,

who's claimed responsibility for Sidhu's killing. I don't want to spoil the birthday celebrations, so I shut myself away in a separate room, waiting for the phone to ping. When it finally does, it's the early hours of the morning. All right, a message has just dropped, and it's the message is a social media post by the Bishnoi group, and it's a rather gruesome claim

that they're making about killing a person in Canada. Basically, they say they've avenged a friend's death and with that person's picture. And that's it. That's the only message they've sent me. It's not what I was expecting. I wasn't expecting them to send me a claim to a murder. In the social media post are two graphic photos and a video of a dead body. Honestly, I don't know what they expect me to do with it and why are they sending me these pictures where they're claiming responsibility.

Then, 30 minutes later, my phone rings again. I've just spoken to them and everything around this story is so sensitive, so I couldn't record the phone call. There were two voices. One was the person I was talking to and another one in the background chipping in. Both quite well-spoken, talking in Punjabi, with the odd word in English.

And they were youngish, I'd say maybe in their twenties. They wanted me to do a news report on the killing, the social media posts that they'd sent me, the killing in Canada. And based on that, they're going to make a decision on whether I can meet Goldie Bra or not. I told them I couldn't publish it. The BBC decides what to report. It can't be used by criminals to broadcast on their demand. I felt like it was a test, really, to see if I was the kind of person they could control. Maybe in the same way they were trying to control Sidhu Musiala.

This is World of Secrets, Season 8. The Killing Call, a BBC World Service investigation. I'm investigative journalist Ishleen Kaur. And I'm broadcaster and DJ Bobby Friction. Episode 4, Making Last time we saw Sidhu, he'd come back to India from Canada to perform a concert at Punjab University. He also goes back to his village Musa and it really is a homecoming. This is a video of him driving into the village. Finally we've arrived, he says to the camera. Hello, hello to you all. For everyone who hasn't seen my village, here it is. This is my village, Musa.

I gave him a car. People are out on the streets to greet him, like a returning hero. Fathers carrying their young babies, people who've been working in the fields, children running and waving. Look, says Sidhu, there's my mum. Three young men on a motorcycle drive alongside Sidhu's open window.

Inside the car, Sidhu gives a wide smile. There's another video of Sidhu later, after he's moved back to his village for good. He's out in the fields with a bunch of young friends. He's wearing a red polo shirt and a black turban. He looks happy, carefree. Are you making a vlog? Sidhu teases the guy taking the video. I bet you don't get many views, he says.

That's why you need a celebrity like me in it, he jokes. One of the locals who starts spending time with Sidhu is a young novelist called Manjinder Makha. The two young men have a lot in common. He was an artist and a writer and I am a writer. So we used to share a lot of things. We used to talk about poetry and the poets we both liked. He loved finding out about things.

He would spend hours listening to music. You know old Punjabi music by famous singers like Chamkeela or the great Sufi musicians of Pakistan. And he would listen to his own kind of music too. He didn't act like a celebrity, Manjinder says. He used to sit and chat with people in the village or people out in the fields. He was just like any other ordinary person. When Sidhu left for Canada, he was still a young boy. He was still learning.

But now he was back and he was successful, established. And he started looking around at what was going on and what was happening in Punjab. He began reading about Punjabi history, about our culture, issues, our problems. And you start to hear that change in his music. You know, in my experience, the really amazing artists go on a journey. I just never thought his journey would literally switch from bright lights, big cars, big beats, gangster stuff, straight to Punjabi politics.

For me, when Siddharth returned to Punjab, he started singing more about his village, you know, his love for his motherland. And he's really trying to prove that point that I am the son of Punjab. But then he went on and he spoke about the current socio-political issues of the India of today. Punjabis, Indian Punjabis that is, especially in the diaspora, tend to get all misty eyed about the Punjab. They haven't really spent many years there. They only visit for like two or three weeks at a time.

Yes, it's beautiful. Yes, the people are funny, irreverent, loud, full of life and warmth. That's what Punjabis are really proud of being, the heart and soul of any party and never, ever afraid to speak their mind. But there's a lot of unemployment, a lot of drug abuse and a lot of young people as we know end up leaving. And that's what Sidhu sang about. He sang about the real Punjab, the problems of Punjab and that's what made him the artist that he became. Punjab can be a violent place. And it has a violent history.

Tens of thousands of troops have been moved into the Punjab. Nine people are killed in new riots around the holy city of Amritsar. 500 people were killed in Wednesday's battle in the Punjab. After returning from Canada, Sidhu begins reading, immersing himself in that history. This is in the bloodline of the entire Punjab. He was reading, immersing himself in that history. This thing is in our bloodline in Punjab. Punjab has been rebuilt so many times, it has been left in ruins again and again. And he understood that. These things stayed in his mind.

Almost every Sikh child is brought up knowing about Punjab's history and in particular about those brutal years starting in the 1970s when the movement for more autonomy for Sikhs in Punjab really intensified. It turns into a separatist insurgency, a movement for an independent Sikh homeland known as Khalistan. And it will result in 1984, in one of the most controversial episodes in India's modern history. Army and paramilitary units have taken up positions within 200 yards of the Golden Temple,

the most sacred Sikh shrine. At the heart of it is a preacher and leader of the Sikh independence movement called Jarnail Singh Bindranwale. Hello, Khabar Lahariya. Each day, Sant Bindranwale holds court. The Indian government calls Bindranwale a militant. Fearing arrest, he barricades himself with his armed supporters inside the Sikh's holiest shrine, the Golden Temple.

India's Prime Minister Indira Gandhi sends in the army and the tanks. They call it Operation Blue Star. Battle at the Golden Temple has been hard fought and costly, there were three hours of hand to hand fighting. Bindranwale is killed during the battle, along with hundreds of others. But the violence doesn't stop there.

We regret to announce the death of the Prime Minister, Mr. Indira Gandhi. Later that year, India's leader, Indira Gandhi, is assassinated. The world mourns Indira Gandhi, Prime Minister of India, assassinated by two Sikh members of her own bodyguard. Already tonight the tensions between the majority Hindus and the Sikh community are spilling over into violence. Buses have been burned and Sikhs attacked and many have gone into hiding.

Bobby, I know you were in Delhi during those days. You were very young. Tell me what you remember. Yeah, I was 13 and I woke up with my sister crying and her saying, look, the Gurdwara is on fire. And I opened my eyes and the Sikh temple right near our family house, there was smoke coming out of the top and I could smell burning and I went downstairs and then I heard what sounded like a mob getting closer and closer, the sound of glass smashing, the sound of bricks smashing and at that point my relatives went, that's it, upstairs now

and I can remember my mum screaming my name because I was the last one to run up the stairs. And nine of us locked ourselves in a tiny bathroom. And as we were locking ourselves, every window in the house smashed. Several thousand Sikhs are killed in the riots. It takes around another decade and many more deaths before the insurgency in Punjab finally ends. It's about this same time that Shubhdeep Singh Sidhu is born.

He will become Sidhu Musiala. When Sidhu started reading about Bhindranwale and about what happened in the 70s and the 80s and the 90s, he believed both sides had a point. But he did think what happened at the Golden Temple, the way the army went in, it could not be justified, you know. It pained him. What happened during those years is still very contentious. Most Sikhs in Punjab don't support the idea of a separate Sikh state or Khalistan. But in the diaspora,

there are still groups pursuing the idea. In India, though, even to talk about the issue is now a red line. Today, the word Khalistani is used almost as an insult. Hindu nationalists especially use it as if to say, you're not really loyal to India. You see it thrown around online a lot. Even some politicians use it. And Sidhu gets called it too on social media because he starts singing about Punjab's history and its place in India. This is an interview Sidhu gave days before he died.

The interviewer asks, are you still affected by 1984 Operation Blue Star when Indian troops stormed the Golden Temple? Who isn't affected? A mistake was made. So many people were killed. The Prime Minister was killed. And what was the result? Punjab would be 60, 70 years ahead economically

if this hadn't happened. We wouldn't have to hear this taunt from people. Sidhu stops, as if he can't quite bring himself to say the word. The interviewer presses him. What taunt? What do they say? They say we are Khalistanis. Khalistani? That we are Khalistani? They say that 99% of Punjabis are heartless.

I don't want to hear that. Let me tell you what 99% of Punjabis are not happy with the way I am. circumstances that forced us to pick up the gun. We've got no objection to living together. All we say is we should be given equal status. And when a new crisis emerges between Punjab and the government in Delhi, Sidhu takes a stand. It's December 2020. Sidhu Musiala has been living back in Punjab for over a year, when tens of thousands of Indian farmers start marching on the capital Delhi. They're protesting against new agricultural laws. From their fields and their land, they came on tractors, trucks and horseback. Police use water cannons and tear gas.

But the farmers won't be stopped. It's become the biggest challenge facing India's Prime Minister, Larendra Modi. Most are from Punjab and from the neighbouring state, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh. This is a fight over the future of farming in India. Government is not listening to us. Government is so stubborn.

The farmers bring food and fuel and camp on the borders of Delhi, choking the roads into the capital. It's like a siege. They'll sit it out for months. This is a startling sight in a democracy, a deadly wall on the road to the national capital to keep out protesters. Sidhu and his friend Manjinder donate warm clothes, food and medicines. Money too.

It's as if the protests ignite something in Sidhu. A sense of indignation maybe, a feeling of injustice. At that time, the national media was trying to present the farmers as separatists A feeling of injustice. The national media was trying to present the farmers as separatists and Khalistanis and terrorists. And that really affected Sidhu. His father had served in the army. A lot of the boys in the village have been in the army. Some of them have died for our country. So it hurt when people said these kind of things.

It felt like Punjabis, Sikhs were being treated as second-class citizens. Siddhu has often talked about feeling close to the land. He said, I'm a farmer first, a farmer's son, then a singer. Siddhu organises a tractor rally in support of the farmers. You see him standing high above the surging sea of protesters, commanding the crowd, just like he does at his concerts. But what he's saying is different from anything he's said before.

This isn't about guns or local politics. This is a direct challenge to the government in Delhi. Sidhu tells the crowd, if our livelihoods are attacked, we're going to resist. He starts to sing. Listen carefully, Delhi, go the lyrics. If you lay your hands on our turbines, we won't stop at protests. We'll bring you down. His words become even more pointed.

He's addressing the country's Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, by name. I see the capital is drunk with power. Tell Modi the farmer's son is here to spoil his plans. It was during the farmers' protest that Sidhu Musiala released a track called Punjab, My Motherland. It becomes one of the anthems of the protests. You'd hear it blaring from tractors and rallies. I remember hearing the track Punjab and just thinking, oh, the real Sidhu has finally arrived. It really felt like this was him breaking free of those chains

and it's all there in the lyrics. He's talking about, don't ever mess with the Punjab, you'll never oppress us. It was full-on on in your face, it felt like a rocket up the establishment. The farmers' protests last over a year. In the end, the government backs down. The agricultural laws are repealed. All this time behind the scenes, in the quiet of his home and his village, Manchinda says Sidhu Musiala is still getting threats.

He used to get threat calls saying you have to go to this event or that event or you have to go meet this important person. There were even times when they would ask him for the rights to one of his songs so they could post it on their own YouTube channel. Manchanda, can you tell us of a time when you were with him and he received a call? Yes, absolutely. Once we were going to a shopping mall in a nearby city, there were three of us, me, my cousin and Sidhu. And Sidhu was driving. And we stopped for a break and he got this call. They were asking for a lot of money, you know, tens of millions of rupees. And he started arguing with them. He said, how can you expect me to give you all that money?

I have worked really hard for it. It's mine. I have earned it. How would Sidhu react to these threat calls? He would get frustrated, you know. It was pretty constant. They'd ask for money or they would say they're going to kill him or they're going to ruin his image.

He didn't talk about it much with anyone, not even his parents or close relatives. He didn't want to worry them. And he'd always speak back to these guys, you know. He was brave. He would say to them, look, everything I've achieved, I've done it on my own. And that's how I'm going to keep on living my life. But we've been told there are some gangsters

that he did engage with. You remember, we heard in episode 3, sources told us that whilst he was in Canada, Sidhu began talking from time to time with the leader of one of Punjab's biggest gangs, Lawrence Bishnoi. Now I'm told that back in India, Sidhu is getting close to someone reportedly linked to Lawrence Bishhnoy's rivals,

the Bambi Ha Gang. And something is about to happen that will be a turning point. Sidhu will find himself having to make a choice. This is a kabaddi. It's fast, furious, high energy, sweaty and loud. A mix between wrestling, the playground game of tag and the English game of rugby, minus the ball. the English game of rugby minus the ball. For villages across Punjab, having a winning Kabaddi team is a source of huge pride. Tens of thousands of people turn up to tournaments and lots of people bet on it as well.

Kabaddi is big money, which is why, just like in the music industry in Punjab, gangsters are involved. And they often invite their favourite singers to go along. In March 2020, Sidhu Musiala posts this video to social media. He's calling on people to attend a Kabaddi tournament organized by a friend. The friend is Mandeep Talival, who's reported to be close to the Bambiha gang. Lawrence Bishnoi's rivals. Sidhu does a salute to the camera before signing off. But the problem is the Bishnoi gang doesn't want him to go.

Manjinder, Sidhu's friend from the village remembers Sidhu getting a call. Manjinder didn't know who called but he says Sidhu came and talked to him and other friends he was with and asked what shall I do. We were all sitting together and Sidhu came and said he'd received these and asked, what shall I do? We were all sitting together and Sidhu came and said he'd received these threats and the gangsters were telling him not to go. And what did we think? Should he go or not? And we all said, look, you've had this call today, tomorrow there'll be another call. And what are you going to do tomorrow if they say don't even leave your house?

Will you do it? We said you should go and we will deal with it together. Whatever happens afterwards." What Manjinder didn't know, but what we've been told since by several other sources is, those gangsters are from the Lawrence Bishnoi group. And Sidhu defies their warnings. He does go to the tournament. He was an outspoken kind of guy.

He did not want to feel like he was under someone else's control. It was about having his freedom. That's why he decided to go to the Kabaddi Cup. It's a defining moment in Sidhu's life. A reminder here, Lawrence Bishnoi is also the guy who took that call in prison on the night Sidhu was killed. The call in which he was told, we've killed him, we've killed the Sikh. Lawrence Bishnoi, whose gang Gaudi Bra is part of. And after that tournament, did he change as a person or was he still the same fearless

Sidhu? He did become more aware, I'd say. He'd take security with him wherever he went, armed guys. People from the music industry used to pass on news and tell him to stay safe. Politicians too, and police officers. But I wouldn't say he was scared. On the night Sidhu was killed, you may remember there were two phone calls. That call to the prison and the other call from Goldie Braa himself, in which he claims

responsibility for organising the killing. And that call was to a journalist from a Punjabi radio station in Canada. Hi Ritesh. It's so nice to meet you in person finally. It's a pleasure. We have been talking on phone prior to this thing. Goldie Bra wouldn't let the journalist Ritesh Lucky record what he said that time. But a couple of weeks later, he calls back and does let Ritesh record. So then I asked him why would you kill him.

He gave me multiple number of reasons, starting from Vicky Midukheda that Sidhu Musewala and his manager Shagunpreet had been involved in the murder. The murder of Vicky Midukhera. Goldie Bra gives other reasons too, but the main one is this murder. Vicky Midukhera was a popular young politician in Punjab. He led the youth wing of the main Sikh political party. Everyone knew Vicky, including me, when I lived in Chandigarh. You'd often see him around the city.

We know that Vicky and Lawrence Bishnoi were students together. Goldie brought too, and I've been told they stayed close. Then, in August 2021, over a year after that Kumbati match we heard about, Youth Akali, the leader, Vicky has been shot dead in Mohali. In broad daylight, as he was getting into his car,

Vicky Muthukhera was shot and killed. Some youth, they were waiting for him, they started firing. He was trying to escape from there, he was trying to save his life. Goldie Bright in his second conversation said that in the murder of Vicky Midukhera, Sidhu Mosewala's manager, Shagunpreet, had some kind of a role in the logistical management of on-ground shooters and criminals. So those things had been coming up in the media reports. So someone very close to Sidhu, his friend and sometimes manager, is accused of being

involved in the killing of Vicky Midhukera. And it's not just the gangsters saying this, the police have also been looking into Shagunpreet Singh. The police say he arranged for the gunmen to stay in a private flat and got a car for them. Shagunpreet Singh himself has publicly denied any involvement and says he was Sidhu's friend, not really his manager. Shagunpreet left India a few weeks before Sidhu was killed. I've tried to contact him several times but he wouldn't answer my questions. Journalist Ritesh Lucky says the murder of Vicky Mithhera mattered to Lawrence Bishnoi and Goldie Braa

because of their shared history. Goldie Braa, Lawrence Bishnoi, Vicky Mitukhera and many of these young students, they were a bunch of youngsters who were moving together. Vicky Mitukhera was a slightly bigger character. He was into student politics, senior to Lawrence Bishnoi in those years. Vicky Mitukheda got him into student organization of Punjab University and that is from where they start. After university, Lawrence and Vicky's lives do go in very different directions. Vicky

goes into politics and he's seen as being very successful, whilst Lawrence ends up in jail, where he's been pretty much since he was 21 years old. All the criminals, the gangsters, they have been student leaders at some point in time. And that is how it starts, from campus to jails, which are considered to be the final universities where you actually learn about crime and you learn about the application of crime.

Police have told me that they have no evidence that Sidhu Musiala himself was involved in any way in Vicky Medukhera's murder. But Ritesh says it was because of some of the company Sidhu was keeping that rumors that he was somehow involved kept cropping up. As far as Sidhu Moosewala is concerned, there have been some kind of associations with certain kind of controversial characters. I won't say they were gangsters, but in Punjab it's not something that is such a huge shock if you know somebody who has been involved in a violent crime. So Sidhu Moosewala was also, you know, associated with certain friends of his, some people who later on became controversial,

including Shagun Preet, including Mandeep Dhaliwal, who was alleged to be very close to the Bihar gang. Remember, Mandeep Dhaliwal was the friend who invited Sidhu to go to that Kabaddi tournament. Ritesh is convinced it was Lawrence Bishnoi himself who called Sidhu that day and told him not to go to the match. Lawrence Bishnoi did call, that's a fact. The stands corroborated. These incidents have been part of the public knowledge.

So Lawrence Bishnoi called Sidhu Musewala, asking him, warning him not to go in that particular tournament. The call that Sidhu chose to ignore. And Sidhu Musewala still went ahead. And we know from Sidhu's friend Manjinder that it was after this that the threat started getting worse and worse. this, that the threat started getting worse and worse. I've also been told that after that Cavalli match, Vicky Midekhera tried to mediate between Sidhu Musayala and

Lawrence Bishnoi. He tried to patch things up. Vicky had a reputation as a peacemaker, the man everyone liked, a problem solver. Someone who knew him told us Vicky was the line that kept everything bad away. And when Vicky was killed, that line was gone. And it was like the wild wild west. It's a cool early autumn morning in London. The leaves on the trees haven't quite started to turn.

I'm rushing for the office. I've just closed the door of our home and I'm about to walk to the station to catch a train to work when… I glance down at my phone. It's a voice message. I recognise the number. It's the one that Goldie Brass people have been using to call me. I need to find somewhere quiet, away from the hubbub, so I find a spot down a narrow

side road. I put in my headphones and press play. Hi, Eichlin. It's me Goldie Brass. I am getting your message from around the year now. I was busy, that's why we couldn't talk. I am happy to talk to you guys. I knew about you guys.

You are asking about Situated Insignia, right? Why it happened, how it happened. So yeah, I am going to tell you some incidents I know about which can help to clear the air a little bit. That's next time on World of Secrets, from the BBC World Service. The Killing Call is a BBC iProduction. If you're new to World of Secrets, there are seven previous seasons.

For example, The Disciples, the cult of Nigerian prophet TB Joshua, a story of miracles, faith and manipulation. World of Secrets, The Killing Call is presented by me, Ishleen Kaur. And me, Bobby Friction. It's produced by Luis Hidalgo, Rob Wilson, and Eamon Kwaja, with script advice from Matt Willis. Sound designer Mix is by Tom Brignol, and the executive producer is Rebecca Henschke.

The editor is Daniel Adamson, and the BBC iSeries producer is Ankur Jain. Original music by Ashish Zakariya. Fact-checking is by Curtis Gallant. Additional research by Ajit Sarati and Arvind Chhabra. The production manager is Dawn McDonald and the production coordinator is Katie Morrison. Many thanks to the BBC World Service Commissioning team that's behind World of Secrets. And thank you for listening.