How Lawrence Bishnoi went from Punjabi student politics to being accused of murders in Canada

The killing of a Khalistani separatist in Canada, the assassination of a former minister in Mumbai and the murder of a gym owner in South Delhi – the police forces investigating these wildly different cases have one common entity on their list of suspects: the Lawrence Bishnoi gang.

Over the past couple of years, members of the Bishnoi gang have also been accused of murdering popular Punjabi musician Sidhu Moosewala and are alleged to have made an attempt to kill actor Salman Khan. While the range of accusations against the gang itself is stunning, what is even more incredible is that the gang’s kingpin, Bishnoi, has been in jail since 2014.

Despite that, according to media reports that cite the police, the gang has over 700 shooters in its network in India and abroad who carry out murders and extortion at Bishnoi’s behest. From petty crimes to being instrumental in New Delhi’s alleged plot to eliminate separatists in Canada, Bishnoi has had a meteoric rise over the past 15 years.

Where it started

Born in 1992 to an affluent family of land-owning agriculturists, Bishnoi had his first brush with crime after he started a law course in Panjab University. In 2008, a year after he was admitted to the institution, Bishnoi fired at an election candidate for the Student Organisation of Panjab University, according to The Hindu.

The candidate was a rival of Bishnoi's friend, Robin Brar, who eventually lost the election. Bishnoi was jailed for two months before he received bail. During his time in jail, he met Ranjit Dupla, an alleged arms smuggler, who later helped the Bishnoi gang get access to sophisticated weapons, the report quoted the police as saying.

After the elections, Bishnoi tried to shoot at the brother of the winning candidate, resulting in another six-day jail stint in Chandigarh. This time, Bishnoi met local criminal Davinder Babla who would also go on to become a part of his gang, according to The Hindu.

He continued to forge alliances behind bars. In April, the National Investigation Agency which is probing Bishnoi in several cases, said that during questioning, the gangster had described a “business model” under which he made alliances with jailed criminals in Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Rajasthan and Delhi.

Under this arrangement, the gangsters supplied shooters and weapons to each other and provided help in crossing state borders, an unidentified source told The Indian Express.

In college, Bishnoi was also involved in clashes within the campus. In 2010, he assaulted a rival candidate after contesting unsuccessfully to be chairman of the student body. In 2011, Bishnoi contested again and managed to win.

By 2012, when he graduated, Bishnoi had already set up a gang that traded in illegal arms. This was primarily to protect himself from the enemies he had made while in student politics, The Hindu reported.

Bishnoi’s rise

Out of college and in charge of an armed gang, Bishnoi looked to increase his clout. While his gang members continued to hold positions in the university student body, Bishnoi advanced into professional politics. In 2014, he and his aides shot dead a rival of a cousin’s friend who was contesting in the Ludhiana municipal corporation polls. After the incident, he went into hiding in Rajasthan, The Hindu reported citing Bishnoi’s criminal dossier.

During his time in Rajasthan, he also started investing in the liquor business, according to the newspaper. Rivalry and killings followed Bishnoi here too. After a rival gang murdered one of his cousins who was a liquor trader in 2014, those involved in the killing were on Bishnoi’s hit list, according to the criminal dossier. In the same year, he was arrested in Gurugram while on his way to kill one of the persons accused in the murder.

By now though, the Bishnoi gang had a network wide enough to function smoothly even if its leader was in jail. This was evident when in 2015, eight of Bishnoi’s aides helped him escape from police custody while he was on his way to a jail in Punjab’s Ropar from a court hearing.

After he was arrested again by the Faridkot Police in March 2015 for possessing foreign weapons, Bishnoi was accused of making extortion calls from jail. In 2019, Bishnoi confessed to having ordered the killing of a property dealer in Chandigarh while he was in custody in Rajasthan.

The gang goes big

It was in 2018 that Bishnoi and his gang shot to national prominence. In June that year, the Haryana Police arrested gangster Sampat Nehra for allegedly planning to kill actor Salman Khan. The incident brought attention to the fact that Bishnoi's gang was operating on his instructions even though he was in jail. In January 2018, Bishnoi had threatened to kill Khan because the actor had been accused of illegally hunting a black buck, an antelope species revered by the Bishnoi community.

After Nehra's arrest, the police said that Bishnoi had been in touch with him through social media and messaging platform, WhatsApp. The episode also highlighted the strong bond between Bishnoi and his aides. Nehra, according to media reports, was an acquaintance of Bishnoi from their Panjab University days. Both of them practised together for athletics events. After Bishnoi went to jail, Nehra became a key member of the gang.

Bishnoi’s criminal skills would again come into prominence at the time of the murder of Punjabi singer Sidhu Moosewala in 2022. Bishnoi was in Delhi’s Tihar Jail at the time of the murder. The Punjab Police accused Bishnoi of being a key conspirator in the murder case after his aide Goldy Brar, a Canada-based gangster, claimed responsibility for the murder in a social media post.

Bishnoi denied having links with the Moosewala murder but the gang’s influence in Canada became evident after it claimed responsibility for the killing of Sukhdool Singh alias Sukha Duneke in Winnipeg in September last year. Duneke was wanted by the National Investigation Agency for his alleged links with Khalistani separatist groups.

After the Moosewala murder, an unidentified senior police official told The Hindu that Bishnoi keeps in touch with his gang members, including those in countries like Canada and Thailand, through calls made via the internet, which are difficult to trace.

While it remains unclear how Bishnoi has access to the internet while in custody, the seamless operation of his network has allegedly resulted in two more recent murder cases. In September, a gym owner in Delhi’s Greater Kailash area was allegedly killed by the Bishnoi gang after his friend refused to give in to extortion.

Last week, a member of the gang also claimed responsibility for the murder of former Maharashtra minister Baba Siddique allegedly due to his close ties to Salman Khan and members of the underworld. At the time of both these murders, Bishnoi was in Sabarmati Central Jail in Ahmedabad.

Bishnoi’s cult status

As the Bishnoi gang’s rise to fame continues, a concerning aspect that has come to the fore is how his actions are being eulogised in some quarters. After gangster-turned-politician Atiq Ahmed was shot dead in Uttar Pradesh in April 2023, those accused of the crime said they were fans of Bishnoi.

As the Canadian police on Monday alleged that Indian officers were hand in glove with the Bishnoi gang in targeting Khalistan supporters in the country, Hindutva supporters on social media started to back Bishnoi. Posts describing Bishnoi as a “patriot” and claiming that Khalistan supporters were scared of the gangster have gone viral on social media.