NEW DELHI – Gangster Sampat Nehra, who was arrested on Wednesday by aspecial task force of Haryana Police, had been plotting to execute actorSalman Khan. Nehra was arrested in Hyderabad and has been brought toGurugram on transit remand, Hindustan Times has reported.

“Preliminary questioning during the journey from Hyderabad has revealedthat Salman Khan was on the gang’s hitlist and Nehra alone had beenassigned to execute the operation. He went to Mumbai for two days andclicked photographs, took note of the actor’s movement around the balconyand house in Galaxy Apartment, possibly to gauge the distance and weaponryrequired,” said Satheesh Balan, deputy inspector general, Haryana STF.

Nehra, 28, is the son of a retired assistant sub inspector of Chandigarhpolice and a national level decathlon athlete. He is a key member ofLawrence Bishnoi’s gang and accused in more than a dozen cases of murder,extortion, carjacking and robber. Nehra was arrested along with the aidesin a carjacking case in 2016, but was later released on bail. Nehra metBishnoi when they were both lodged in a Patiala Jail.

Bishnoi, currently lodged in Bharatpur jail in Rajasthan, had issued adeath threat to Salman Khan in January 2018. “Bishnoi is running thenetwork from jail and has been in touch with Nehra and other aides throughmobile phones,” said Balan, adding that the police suspected Bishnoi’sgang, which uses social media and Whatsapp for its operations, receivesfunding from abroad.

A senior police official, requesting anonymity, said that Nehra hadtravelled in a train from Chhattisgarh to Mumbai in the third week of May.“He stayed in Ghatkopar, Mumbai. After the first recce, Nehra wanted tomaintain a low profile and had been camping in Hyderabad for the past 20days. He was going to return to Mumbai in a few days for another recce,”said the official.