Singer booked for promoting gun culture is Punjab Police’s poster boy

A screenshot of the video featuring Mankirt Aulakh, tweeted by Fatehgarh Sahib district police.

Booked by Mansa police in February for allegedly promoting and glorifying gun culture and violence through his songs, singer Mankirt Aulakh alias Mankirat has appeared in an official video of Punjab Police, making a public appeal to shun drugs. He is yet to be arrested.

A video shared from the Twitter handle of Fatehgarh Sahib district police on Friday — which was observed as International Day Against Drug Abuse — showed Aulakh appealing to people to give up drugs and urging addicts to get treated.

The singer along with Shubhdeep Singh alias Sidhu Moosewala was booked by Mansa Police on February 2 under sections 294 (sings, recites or utters any obscene song), 504 (intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of peace) and 149 (unlawful assembly) of the IPC. Both singers were booked for allegedly singing and promoting the song ‘Pakhiyan, pakhiyan.. gun vich panj goliyaan, ni tere panj veeran layi rakhiyan…Ni jidey uttey tu mardi, ohde uttey ikk 302 da parcha. (I have five bullets in my gun for your five brothers…The guy who you love is already booked for murder)’. A video of both singers singing this song had gone viral on social media even as Moosewala had claimed in his statement that “lyrics were not originally penned by him” and that he was “singing it casually”.

Mansa SSP Narinder Bhargav and SP (detective) Digvijay Kapil said they would get back after checking the status of Aulakh’s arrest, but later did not respond to calls and messages.

SI Amarjeet Singh, SHO Sadar Mansa police station, confirmed that Aulakh’s arrest in the case was still pending. “He is yet to be arrested. We have clear instructions from our senior officers that we cannot share any details regarding this case.”

Mansa SP (PBI) Kuldeep Singh, when contacted, also confirmed that Aulakh is “absconding”. “Aulakh is yet to be arrested. He is at large. We do not have any update in our records if he has got bail from any court. According to our records, he is still absconding and his arrest is pending. Due to coronavirus, raids could not be conducted to arrest him.”

Didn’t know he was booked: Fatehgarh Sahib SSP

Fatehgarh Sahib SSP Amneet Kondal said that she wasn’t aware that Aulakh had been booked by Mansa Police. “We just chose him for today’s anti-drug campaign because he is a popular face. He is popular among youths so we thought his appeal will appeal to the youths and they will be motivated to leave drugs. We were not aware that he was booked in an FIR by Mansa police. Recently, he also shot his song with the administration’s permission in our area and there was no issue,” said SSP Kondal.

Asked if anti-drug video was shot in the presence of police, Kondal said, “No, we contacted the singer and requested him to shoot a clip for us. He recorded on his own and sent it.”

According to the singer’s official website, he belongs to Fatehabad of Haryana and has been currently living in Mohali. He could not be reached for comment.

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