From his cell in a high-security Indian prison, Lawrence Bishnoi allegedly instructions an empire.
His throne room is a concrete field; his scepter a smartphone smuggled in to his confines. From there, the 32-year-old kingpin stands accused of threatening a Bollywood celebrity, murdering a pop icon, and orchestrating a political assassination midway the world over.
Light-skinned with a thick mustache and a chilly gaze, Bishnoi has lengthy been accused by India’s prime investigative physique, the National Investigation Agency, of commanding a fearsome community of greater than 700 members from behind bars, the place he faces a litany of prices from prison conspiracy and extortion, to homicide and terror actions.
Then final month he turned the face of a delegated terrorist entity in Canada – after Ottawa accused India of utilizing his gang to hold out crimes towards Sikh dissidents on Canadian soil.
That designation elevated Bishnoi from being certainly one of India’s most well-known mob bosses – and a family identify in his homeland – to an internationally wished kingpin.
“Specific communities have been targeted for terror, violence and intimidation by the Bishnoi Gang. Listing this group of criminal terrorists gives us more powerful and effective tools to confront and put a stop to their crimes,” Canada’s Minister of Public Safety Gary Anandasangaree stated in an announcement Monday.
Bishnoi denies lots of the prices and accusations towards him, and his lawyer advised NCS that they might want to examine Canada’s newest allegations.
NCS has contacted Sabarmati jail within the western state of Gujarat the place Bishnoi is at the moment held however didn’t obtain a response.
New Delhi has not publicly commented on the designation, which comes as the 2 international locations work to restore ties after years of icy relations.
Bishnoi’s story didn’t start within the slums of the prison underworld.
It started within the fertile fields of India’s Punjab state: the nation’s “bread basket” celebrated for its vibrant tradition and a deep-seated sense of native satisfaction; however a land that has additionally been affected by youth unemployment and widespread gang violence.
It is there that the previous pupil activist started his transfomation into the alleged architect of a transnational prison enterprise.
Before the world knew him as Lawrence Bishnoi, he was Balkaran Brar, and his world was confined to the dusty, meandering lanes of Dutarawali – an unassuming farming village house to simply over 3,000 folks, in keeping with the 2011 census.
About a seven-hour drive from the nation’s capital and an hour from India’s tense border with neighboring Pakistan, it’s a spot the place life revolves across the harvest.
There, Bishnoi appeared destined for a middle-class life. The son of a Haryana police constable, he started his training in a convent faculty, the place his mom had massive goals for her son.
Bishnoi is nicely educated and comes from a “very good family,” stated Jupinderjit Singh, journalist and writer of the e book “Who Killed Moosewala?” which chronicles one of many Bishnoi gang’s highest-profile alleged crimes – the killing of Punjabi rapper Sidhu Moosewala.
His identify – a really “unusual” one for a Hindu boy, Singh famous – got here from his mom, in homage to Sir Henry Lawrence, the primary colonial-era British administrator of Punjab, as a result of Bishnoi was born with very reasonable pores and skin.
The disconnect between Bishnoi the gangster and Bishnoi the kid is starkest in his house village, the place residents wrestle to reconcile the 2.
“He was a very good boy and had a good nature,” a Dutarawali resident told NCS affiliate NCS News-18 in an interview final 12 months. “If you go to anyone in this village, no one will say anything bad about him… I don’t believe he is a gangster.”
Another stated Bishnoi “never spoke ill of anyone” within the village. “He treated everyone with respect,” the person advised NCS News-18.
But quickly the lanes of his village, the place he would play volleyball and cricket with the close by children, proved too small a stage for his ambitions.
Sometime round 2010, Bishnoi left Dutarawali for Chandigarh – the bustling and trendy state capital – reportedly to check legislation. It was there that his metamorphosis from small-town boy to gang chief started, in keeping with a prolonged 2023 chargesheet obtained by NCS that lays out his profession and the handfuls of accusations stacked towards him through the years.
Bishnoi enrolled in Panjab University, an establishment that has lengthy served as a direct pipeline for the area’s future political strongmen and, in some instances, its most infamous criminals. For Bishnoi, this atmosphere supplied the right apprenticeship; the often-violent world of pupil politics turned his private enviornment, a spot the place he realized that dominance was gained with fists and, ultimately, firearms.
“In no time, Lawrence Bishnoi had built a huge criminal terror network in Punjab, Haryana, Chandigarh and Rajasthan by way of their alliance with other gangs,” in keeping with an inventory of Bishnoi’s prices from 2023, obtained by NCS.
According to Singh, Bishnoi has cultivated the general public persona of a pious man devoted to God and justice. To help this monastic picture, the gangster professes to remain off medication, he stated.
This self-portrayal prolonged to his political id. During a 2023 interview from behind bars with the ABP information channel, Bishnoi outlined himself as a “patriot” and a “nationalist,” articulating his opposition to each Pakistan and the Khalistan motion, which pushes for a proposed Sikh homeland that would come with elements of India.
Bishnoi’s first time in handcuffs got here when he was arrested for an alleged assault in 2010. Within two years, he had 13 prison instances lodged towards him, in keeping with the listing of prices, every transient run-in with police allegedly hardening his resolve to broaden his community.
The sport modified in 2014, when a routine police cease in Rajasthan erupted right into a shootout, touchdown him once more in custody. Yet, even then, the legislation couldn’t maintain him. In a daring escape a couple of months later, Bishnoi vanished, allegedly to settle a blood debt for a slain cousin, according to local media reports.
In March 2015, he was captured in Punjab. This time, there can be no escape however as police would come to study, caging Bishnoi wouldn’t finish his reign.
“Lawrence Bishnoi runs the entire operations of the gang from within the jail,” his chargesheet says. “He is so adept in operating from inside the jail,” it added.
Bishnoi used social media to develop his gang, importing movies and photographs of his group’s prison acts to recruit younger folks, in keeping with his chargesheet.
The Bishnoi Gang operates on anonymity, it added.
“A person in the gang knows only the person who is above him in the hierarchy and all the gang members involved in an operation do not have every information about the rest of the members,” the chargesheet says. “The gang-members present at the time of killing also often do not know each other so that if one gets arrested, the rest of the gang members remain safe.”
In the years after Bishnoi’s arrest, the alleged actions of the Bishnoi Gang solely grew bolder.
In 2018, he gained widespread notoriety for publicly threatening Salman Khan, a Bollywood celebrity and certainly one of India’s most recognizable males. The vendetta stemmed from Khan’s alleged 1998 poaching of two blackbuck antelopes, an animal thought-about sacred to Bishnoi’s gang.
Bishnoi is a follower of the Bishnoi neighborhood, a Hindu group in northern India typically referred to as the “Guardians of Nature.” Its followers strictly adhere to the 29 commandments of Guru Jambheshwar, which embrace the sacred ideas of worshiping and defending all animals.
“His first motive… was to threaten Salman Khan and to announce revenge for the killing of the blackbuck,” Singh stated.
Four years later, police accused him of masterminding the killing of Moosewala, a Punjabi icon whose lyrics chronicled the hardships of life on the streets.
Bishnoi denies involvement in Moosewala’s homicide, however in an explosive interview from behind bars, accused his shut aide of orchestrating it. In the identical breath, he additionally doubled down on his threats towards Khan, declaring it his life’s purpose to make the movie star pay.
Despite him spending practically a decade in prison, Bishnoi’s attain has allegedly metastasized right into a transnational prison syndicate, working within the United States, Dubai, and Canada, in keeping with the chargesheet.
The plot thickened final 12 months when Canadian authorities linked Bishnoi to the focusing on of Sikh separatists on its soil, together with the killing of activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar, who was gunned down in British Columbia in 2023.
Nijjar was a delegated terrorist in India, accused of being behind a banned militant group that sought to “radicalize the Sikh community across the world” in help of Khalistan.
The motion is banned in India and thought of a nationwide safety menace. India has lengthy accused Canada – house to one of many largest Sikh populations outdoors India – of harboring Sikh extremists.
In flip, Ottawa has accused New Delhi of sponsoring violence towards Sikh politicians on its soil.
Last October, throughout testimony to a parliamentary committee, then Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau stated India was utilizing “criminal organizations like the Lawrence Bishnoi gang” to hold out “violence against Canadians” who disagreed with the federal government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
India has repeatedly denied any involvement in Nijjar’s homicide. Indian legislation enforcement officers are cooperating with Canada on the investigation, Canada’s Foreign Minister Anita Anand told NCS affiliate CBC News this month.
NCS has contacted India’s international ministry for remark.
Bishnoi’s gang, now formally designated a terrorist entity by the Canadian authorities, is accused of unleashing a marketing campaign of terror upon diaspora communities.
“The Bishnoi Gang engages in murder, shootings and arson, and generates terror through extortion and intimidation,” Canada’s division of public security said in an announcement. “They create a climate of insecurity in these communities by targeting them, their prominent community members, businesses and cultural figures.”
The World Sikh Organization in Canada cheered the designation.
“The Bishnoi Gang has been a key player in India’s campaign of transnational repression against Sikhs in Canada,” together with Nijjar’s assassination, the group alleged in a statement.
The designation grants Canadian authorities sweeping new powers to freeze property, block funding, and prosecute anybody related to the group.
But even with dozens of prison instances towards him Bishnoi appears unperturbed by the labels related to him.
“I don’t feel bad being called a gangster, it’s the identity God gave me,” Bishnoi stated to ABP in 2024.
“After spending nine years in jail I don’t dream of becoming good, I’m good just the way I am.”