Hacked to death by an axe and club-wielding gang in a ‘cartel-style’ execution, it is hard to conceive a more brutal death than the one inflicted upon DPD driver Aurman Singh.
Yet could the horrific murder, which also saw the 23-year-old battered with a hockey stick, golf club and shovel as he made his deliveries, have stemmed from a mere slap during a row about money?
Until now, the motives behind the brutal and meticulously planned attack have remained unclear. Prosecutors told the trial of his murderers that the precise reason for his death were never definitively established.
Evidence presented to the court suggested the killing could have been an act of revenge for a violent incident at a kabaddi tournament in Derbyshire only the day before the ambush.
But now a Mail investigation has thrown dramatic new light on the reasons behind Aurman Singh’s killing, suggesting that the kabaddi fight was only the latest in a long line of ever-escalating violent incidents, which, incredibly, began with a single slap across the face.
Well-placed gangland sources have told the Mail that the roots of the murder were planted months before, when the leader of a Sikh gang in Sandwell, West Midlands, slapped Aurman during a row about money.
The subsequent humiliation and act of ‘disrespect’ led him to join a rival outfit in Derby and his supposed ‘betrayal’ would eventually lead to his death.
The two Midlands gangs have been involved in a bloody feud ever since which has seen organised fights at an Indian cultural festival and later the kabaddi sports tournament where thugs fought with guns, machetes and ceremonial swords in a battle later described by a judge as ‘medieval’.
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The machete murder of DPD delivery driver Aurman Singh, pictured, came after a series of escalating violent incidents, which began with a slap across the face, the Mail has learned
Manjot Singh (left), 24, and Jagdeep Singh (right), 23, were part of the gang who murdered Aurman Singh
Shivdeep Singh, 27, (left), and Arshdeep Singh, 24, (right) were part of the gang who murdered Aurman Singh
Sukhmandeep Singh, left, worked for DPD and passed on details of Aurman’s delivery route to his killers. Mehakdeep Singh, right, and Sehajpal Singh, centre, drove to Shrewsbury from their homes in a white Mercedes Benz to follow Aurman
Mehakdeep and Sehajpal are pictured on CCTV on a train from Shrewsbury to Wolverhampton after dumping their car following the brutal murder of Aurman in broad daylight
A police drone filmed four of the gang – Arshdeep, Jagdeep, Shivdeep and Manjot being arrested in a grey Audi that they had used to follow Aurman as he delivered parcels on his route
Aurman is filmed in his DPD van making deliveries as usual on the day of his murder. Shortly after this footage was taken, the victim was ambushed by the gang and executed in the street
Just 24-hours after the riot at the Kabaddi event, Aurman was targeted as he made his deliveries in a quiet part of Shrewsbury on August 21, 2023.
His killers had paid a colleague of his at the DPD depot to provide them with his exact delivery route so they could lie in wait and then ambush him.
The ferocity and speed of the attack, that left his left ear severed, and his skull cracked open to leave part of his brain exposed, meant he had no chance of survival, and was pronounced dead at the scene.
Insiders in the Midlands Sikh Punjabi community say the violence ramped up considerably following a dispute at a Wolverhampton pub ten months before Aurman’s murder.
He had been linked to the Sandwell gang, which is led by a mobster who goes by the street name of Geetha.
The gang make money not from drug dealing but from protection rackets and had organised security at a Mujra party – which involved scantily dressed dancing girls – at the Goldthorn Social Club in November 2022.
An argument between Aurman and the gang boss following the event is understood to have set in motion the chain of events that would ultimately lead to his grisly death.
A source told the Mail: ‘It all began at the Goldthorn Social Club on Goldthorn Hill in Wolverhampton, popularly known as Gary’s Bar and a favourite of local Punjabis.
‘After a Mujra night there in early November 2022, Aurman was slapped by Geetha while the pair helped the pub managers count the evening’s takings.
‘Aurman was himself no stranger to gang activity and had been loosely aligned to Geetha’s gang. He swore revenge and got backing from cousins he had in the East Midlands.
‘In the ensuing ten months between the slap incident and Aurman’s subsequent murder, there were several pre-planned clashes arranged by the two warring factions.’
The outbreaks of violence included a ‘crazy fight’ at Europe’s largest Punjabi cultural festival, the Sandwell and Birmingham Mela which was held close to Aurman’s home in Smethwick, West Midlands, in July 2023.
Security guards were forced to intervene and cordoned off the area of Smethwick’s Victoria Park where the trouble broke out. According to eyewitnesses, Aurman was involved.
A month on from that incident, Aurman travelled to Alvaston in Derby on August 20 to watch a tournament of kabaddi, a contact sport, which originated in India and involves two teams of seven players attempting to ‘raid’ each other’s half.
Aurman’s murder was the culmination of months of tension between Sikh gangs in Sandwell, Birmingham and their rivals in Derby. The day before the killing the gangs clashed at a kabaddi festival in Alvaston, Derby, on August 20, 2023
The two rival gangs had travelled to Alvaston for the kabaddi tournament armed to the teeth with machetes, knives and bats and violence inevitably broke out between the factions
What should have been an enjoyable afternoon turned into chaos when the two warring gangs fought a pitched battle (pictured: a gang member attacking a bleeding victim with a machete)
In the melee at the festival one of those fighting was wearing a hat with the DPD logo (circled)
As the atmosphere turned ugly, festival-goers pulled out weapons such as guns, machetes and ceremonial swords to fight with. One man was shot in the groin in chaotic scenes
Following the violence at the Kabaddi tournament, seven men were convicted. Clockwise from top left: Malkeet Singh, Parminder Singh, Karamjit Singh, Doodhnath Tripathi, Baljit Singh, Jagjit Singh, Hardev Uppal
What should have been an enjoyable afternoon turned into chaos when the two warring gangs fought a pitched battle.
Thugs fought with guns, machetes and ceremonial swords and one man was shot in the groin while others were left with gruesome slash wounds
Seven men convicted of violent disorder at the event last year.
Derbyshire Police did not have Aurman marked down as an official suspect in any fighting, but detectives were given mobile phone footage which shows one of the unidentified assailants in the melee wearing a hat with the DPD logo on it.
Rightly or wrongly, they worked on the theory that his supposed involvement in the violence would cost him his life the following day.
A gangland source told the Mail: ‘Aurman was in the thick of it in the Derby clash and was swinging a sword around.
‘He had also been putting up messages on social media since he got slapped, goading and threatening Geetha and his crew.
‘The bad blood between the Sandwell and Derby crews shows no sign of abating.
‘The beef continues to this day’, said the insider. ‘Just last weekend both factions organised another clash at West Park in Wolverhampton but only one side, Geetha’s, turned up. This will continue until blood is spilt to avenge Aurman. It’s a matter of honour.’
Punjabi gangs are growing throughout Britain, particularly in the Midlands. Unlike black and Muslim street gangs they do not have names but are referred to by their leader’s pseudonym.
They are often run along sectarian lines preferring those of the Sikh Punjabi Jat (landowning farmers) caste and eschew anyone outside of their religion.
There are thought to be up to a dozen of these gangs operating throughout the Midlands and they are loosely structured and fluid. They are headed by newly-arrived immigrants from India – labelled disparagingly as ‘freshies’ – as in ‘fresh off the boat’ – by British born Punjabis but who now wear that tag as pride.
The source explained: ‘The influx of young Punjabi men into the UK over the last ten years has seen a rise in gang violence in the community.
‘Many were already hardened criminals in India and a few are still wanted by authorities there.
‘They are like modern-day Tony Montanas (the lead character in gangland film Scarface) in that they are fearless and up for anything.’
The police investigation into Aurman’s murder was filmed for a BBC documentary, Murder 24/7, which aired last week.
It showed footage of officers discussing the Kabaddi attack and simmering tensions in the Punjabi community linking it to his death. The officers studied one mobile phone clip showing an unidentified man involved in the violence wearing a woolly hat with the DPD logo clearly visible.
On the day he died, the court was told, Aurman got up for work and drove 45-miles north from his home to his DPD depot in Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire.
As normal, he loaded his van with packages and then started out on his round. But unbeknownst to him a colleague at the depot – Sukhmandeep Singh, 24 – had passed on details of his delivery route to his killers, along with a photo showing the vehicle’s registration.
Mehakdeep and Sehajpal drove to Shrewsbury from their homes in a white Mercedes. With them were Harpreet Singh and Harwinder Singh Turna, both of whom remain at large.
Four other men – Arshdeep Singh, 24, Jagdeep Singh, 23, Shivdeep Singh, 27, and Manjot Singh, 24 – followed in a grey Audi.
They decided to lay in wait at a quiet suburban area in Coton Hill, Shrewsbury, where Aurman pulled up just before 1pm and got out of his van to start unloading the packages.
The Mercedes parked up behind and Harwinder was the first out, charging at Aurman and his startled colleague with a metal bar.
The colleague ran off in terror and Harwinder hurled the bar at Aurman as he too tried to flee, and the impact caused him to lose balance and tumble to the floor.
Circling around him – several clutching weapons – the killers moved in on their hapless victim, chopping him with an axe, stabbing him and beating him mercilessly with a hockey stick, shovel and golf club.
The attackers left him in a bloodied heap on the pavement. Residents who found him called an ambulance but despite 17 minutes of CPR from police and paramedics, his injuries were too severe and he died at the scene.
Both the Mercedes and Audi drove off at speed.
During his trial, Sehajpal said an argument broke out during their getaway between his co-defendant Mehakdeep and Harwinder about the metal bar being thrown and his fingerprints being on it.
Those in the Mercedes later abandoned their car and dumped their weapons. Sehajpal and Mehakdeep then booked a cab to Shrewsbury rail station, where they met some of the others who had travelled there by bus.
After officers quickly retrieved both car registrations from doorbell camera footage at the scene of the murder, four of Aurman’s killers travelling in the Audi were arrested in Dudley Port area less than two hours after they executed their violent plan.
Moment by moment footage of the tailing of the suspects’ car, filmed by helicopter from above, made for dramatic viewing.
The sheer brutality of the violence meted out to Aurman is laid bare here as you can see the abandoned DPD van he was driving a few hundred feet from where his body was discovered
The gang hadn’t touched the parcels Aurman was delivering and were only interested in killing him as part of their ‘honour killing’ tit-for-tat revenge attack following months of disputes
Aurman was hacked to death with a machete and beaten with a golf club. His blood was left on the road. His skull was beaten so severely using the machete that his brain was exposed
Mehakdeep and Sehajpal pictured after dumping the car and catching the train from Shrewsbury to Wolverhampton, before they headed to flee the UK
Mehakdeep and Sehajpal feld the UK after the murder and were arrested by police in Austria
Due to heavy traffic, an armed response unit was still at least 10 minutes away as a lone, unarmed PC, named only as ‘Bradley’, in uniform, but in an unmarked car, bravely tailed the killers’ vehicle.
At one point, when they doubled back out of a housing estate, he even tried to burst their tyres with a ‘stinger’, but they manage to swerve round it.
The helicopter caught footage of one of the gang dumping the bloodied axe in a wheelie bin, completely unaware he was being filmed.
In early 2024, all four men arrested in the Audi were convicted of the murder and sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 28 years. They were: Arshdeep Singh, 24 of Tipton, Dudley; Jagdeep Singh, 23, of Dudley; Shivdeep Singh, 27, of Smethwick; Manjot Singh, 24, of Smethwick.
The DPD inside man, Sukhmandeep Singh, 24, Peterborough, was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to ten years.
In April 2025, Mehakdeep Singh, 24, and Sehajpal Singh, 26, both of Tipton, West Midlands, were found guilty of Aurman’s murder following a three-week trial at Stafford Crown Court.
The pair had lain low for a couple of weeks before booking flights to Austria, where they were both arrested last May.
Footage released by West Mercia Police shows the moment they were caught during a sting by armed cops in the Austrian village of Hohenzell, about 44 miles north-east of Salzburg.
The court heard how another of the gang, Harwinder boarded a flight to Delhi, India, on August 22 and has since disappeared. Harpreet is said to have withdrawn cash from various ATMs before the trail to catch him likewise went cold.
