Balkaur Singh, father of slain Punjabi singer Shubhdeep Singh, aka Sidhu Moosewala, on Tuesday visited the protest site in Mansa over the killing of anti-drug activist Parvinder Singh Jhota and urged his father Bhim Singh to raise the issue of gangsters with Union Home Minister Amit Shah during his visit to the district.Balkaur, who just returned from abroad after postponing the remaining shows of his son’s hologram tour, said politicians often indulged in politics over such sensitive issues.He asked Bhim Singh to seek answers from the Union Home Minister on why gangsters lodged in Sabarmati jail were not being produced before courts for trial. In his speech, Balkaur also referred to a gangster from Gurdaspur without naming him.He credited the ongoing protests with prompting the Union Home Minister to visit the affected families. “We welcome Amit Shah, who is coming to meet such families,” he said, while questioning the state of law and order in Punjab.Balkaur Singh also alleged that people were being treated as “voting machines” and that politicians approached them only during elections.Referring to his own case, Balkaur said he had also met Amit Shah. “Shah had offered me a ticket for the Sangrur Lok Sabha bypoll,” he claimed.He questioned the government over the delay in the investigation into Jhota’s murder and said Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann had announced a CBI probe into the case only today. He asked what the government had been doing for the past week.“If the CBI probe is conducted fairly, everything will come out, including how much money reaches the people in power through the drug trade,” he alleged.Balkaur Singh also criticised the civil administration, saying an officer had assured the family that a statue would be installed in Jhota’s memory. He questioned whether such assurances were an adequate response to the killing.Offering support to the bereaved family, he told Bhim Singh that he could approach him for any help. Balkaur Singh said he had been abroad, thus could not visit the protest site earlier.He also raised the case of slain drug inspector Neha Shoree and urged Bhim Singh to seek answers from Shah about the investigation into her murder.Appealing to the gathering not to vote for gangsters in the upcoming Assembly elections, Balkaur Singh claimed that nearly 15 gangsters would contest the polls.Recalling his association with Jhota’s family, Balkaur Singh said he and Jhota had been lodged in jail together in 2008 in an attempt to murder case. “Our families had a long association. Whenever we needed his help, he would reach us within minutes,” Balkaur said.He urged Jhota’s family not to repeat the mistakes he believed he had made, though he did not elaborate on them.Raising an alleged financial fraud involving him, he claimed that the accused had travelled to Mumbai, held a seminar and returned, but no lookout circular (LOC) had been issued against them despite a case having been registered around eight months ago.He also questioned the progress of investigations into firing incidents in Mansa, including one at Bara Hatta Chowk, saying there was little information about the action taken in the cases.Earlier, in the day, Jaswinder Kaur Bath, wife of Colonel Pushpinder Singh Bath, who along with his son was allegedly assaulted by some cops in Patiala last year, too visited to protest site and addressed the gathering.