New Delhi/Mumbai: Gangster Lawrence Bishnoi’s henchmen rented a room near actor Salman Khan’s farmhouse in Panvel and did a recce of the place as part of a conspiracy to kill him, investigators said on Thursday after interrogating three suspects arrested last week for rapper Sidhu Moose Wala’s murder.

Deepak Mundi, one of the three arrested from near the Nepal border in Bengal, was the last absconding member of the six-man squad that gunned down Moose Wala in Punjab on May 29. The other two in custody, Kapil Pandit and Rajinder Joker, apparently provided logistical support and weapons to the shooters.

Special commissioner (special cell) H G S Dhaliwal of Delhi police said the Bishnoi gang parked its members near the farmhouse for a month and a half to record the frequency of Salman’s visits and other details. “They procured a car and a bike. The gangsters felt they could target him with a small weapon,” Dhaliwal said.

The gangsters told the interrogators that they made a note of Salman’s car being driven slowly on the potholed road leading to the farmhouse because the actor was carrying an injury suffered in an accident in Mumbai. They also gathered information that Salman’s entourage was a small one, including his bodyguard Shera. Pandit told cops that he and his aides befriended a guard at the farmhouse by posing as fans of the actor. Salman visited his farmhouse twice during the gangsters’ stay, but both times they learnt of it late.

Bishnoi’s gang was looking to target Salman before Moose Wala over his involvement in the blackbuck poaching case. Rajasthan’s Bishnoi community is extremely protective of the species. In 2018, Bishnoi had sent his aide Sampat Nehra to attack the actor at his home in Mumbai. Nehra was later held in Bengaluru.

Mumbai crime branch is probing a case involving a threat letter received by Salman’s father Salim Khan during a walk at Bandra Bandstand. Meanwhile, a city crime branch team is in Punjab to quiz Bishnoi’s gangsters. Also, police have beefed up security and deployed a patrol vehicle near Salman’s Bandra home.