As India-Canada relations touched a historic low this week, one name cropped up at the centre of the diplomatic row, that of Lawrence Bishnoi. The gangster once again barged back into public consciousness and national debates after the murder of NCP leader Baba Siddique, when Bishnoi’s gang claimed responsibility for the shooting. Threats to actor Salman Khan, firing outside his house in April, the killing of Baba Siddique, and the murder of singer Sidhu Moosewala; all the incidents come together at a focal point, believed to be the gangster.
A few news pieces in the international media describe Bishnoi as “India’s most notorious crime boss,” while the social media back home seems obsessed with his whereabouts, for all the right and sometimes wrong reasons.
On Friday, the Mumbai Traffic Police received a threatening WhatsApp message demanding Rs 5 crore from Salman Khan to end the feud. The message further warns that Khan’s fate could be as bad or even worse than Baba Siddique’s.
Amidst all of the alleged crimes, the threats and the fear, Bishnoi is currently housed in PM’s home state of Gujarat, at Sabarmati jail in Ahmedabad, which is again ruled by the BJP.
But how did Bishnoi get to the centre of this chaos?
What could have been a regular borderline Gen Z (Bishnoi was born in 1993) is a notorious gangster now, an image several of his batchmates say he always aspired for. Born in a fairly well-off family in Punjab’s border district of Ferozepur, Bishnoi later came to Chandigarh for higher studies. It is here as a college student that he got into student politics and his frequent run-ins with police and prisoners started.
For those charting Bishnoi’s growth and journey, rue that may be the right mix of counselling coupled with strict law enforcement mechanisms at the right time could have nipped the evil in the bud and prevented Bishnoi from becoming what he is today. Meanwhile, he remains yet another case of a youngster with potential who couldn’t be channelled in the right direction.
Appealing to the reverse psychology, Bishnoi has further positioned himself as a celibate, a ‘principled goon’ and a ‘righteous gangster’ and signs off with remarks like Jai Shri Ram. A right-wing war cry that clearly leaves some kind of an impression on the youngsters.
Bishnoi first captured the nation's attention after the killing of Punjab’s icon and rapper Sidhu Moosewala. Bishnoi’s associates claimed responsibility for the murder citing it as a revenge killing. With Siddique’s murder, many fear that Bishnoi is positioning himself in Mumbai’s notorious underworld.
Canadian allegations
This is not the first time that Bishnoi has popped at the centre of the Canada-India feud. In 2023 also, Canada’s Royal Mounted Police had blamed the Bishnoi gang for carrying out hit jobs at the behest of RAW. This week too while doubling down on its accusation that the government of India masterminded a separatist leader’s killing on Canadian soil, Canadian officials also brought up the name of Lawrence Bishnoi and said that his gang was targeting Sikh dissidents at the behest of New Delhi.
In a deposition before a Canadian inquiry into foreign interference on Wednesday, PM Trudeau alleged that the government of India gathered information on, “Canadians in disagreement with the Modi government and then this information made its way to criminal organizations like Lawrence Bishnoi gang.”
What is the Indian government doing?
Many on social and in international media question, “So how did a criminal get to this? Be at the centre of a geopolitical feud and continue to run a crime syndicate even from behind bars? While conspiracy theories abound (some claim he was born as Balkaran Brar and he changed his name to Lawrence Bishnoi while still in school), Mumbai Police too have not been able to get their hands on Bishnoi. Ever since the April shooting outside Salman Khan’s house, the Mumbai Police has submitted multiple requests for his custody but the requests have been denied due to a Home Ministry order preventing his transfer.
So what is the order and does it aim at protecting him or punishing him? In August, the Union Ministry of Home Affairs extended restrictions on Bishnoi’s movement by another year, thus keeping him confined to Sabarmati Jail in Ahmedabad.
But prison doesn’t seem to have curtailed or even affected his crime syndicate speculated to have as many as 700 shooters, reportedly. The gang operates extensively out of and in several north-Indian states of Rajasthan, Bihar, Haryana, Punjab, Delhi, Himachal Pradesh and now even out of Canada and Mumbai. Some investigative reports indicate that he has access to mobile phones smuggled into prisons with high-end VPN networks.
This week, women’s rights activist and Salman Khan’s former girlfriend Somy Ali, invited the gangster for a Zoom call through her social media. “Like really, are we going to low-key glorify criminals in real life now, as if movies were not enough,” remarked a user in the comments section against Ali’s message.
The questions arise, what is the government doing? But in the meanwhile, the celluloid world is doing its bit, finding creativity in facts and speculations combined. Reportedly, the Indian Motion Pictures Association has approved the title of the series that will delve deeper into his rise into the criminal world. On social media, there’s no dearth of accounts and hashtags that justify Bishnoi’s actions, while some youngsters even look up to him as a revenge icon. Many fear that in an attempt to make an engaging crime fiction, they will invariably glorify the gangster.
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