Lawrence Bishnoi
Based on Wikipedia: Lawrence Bishnoi
The Gangster Who Runs an Empire from Behind Bars
Lawrence Bishnoi has been in prison since 2014. Yet somehow, from inside some of India's most secure facilities, he has allegedly orchestrated assassinations, threatened Bollywood stars, and built a criminal network that spans continents. Canadian authorities now classify his gang as a terrorist organization. Indian officials face accusations that they've used his syndicate as a tool of state violence abroad.
How does a man in a cell become one of the most feared figures in South Asia?
The Making of a Criminal
Lawrence Bishnoi was born Balkaran Brar on February 12, 1993, in Dutarawali, a small village in Punjab's Fazilka district. His family belongs to the Bishnoi panth, a Hindu Vaishnava community of Jat farmers who follow twenty-nine principles laid down by Guru Jambheshwar in the fifteenth century. These principles emphasize environmental conservation and the protection of wildlife—a detail that will become darkly ironic later in this story.
His father was a constable in the Haryana Police who left the force in 1997 to take up farming. By all accounts, young Lawrence showed early signs of both generosity and extravagance. He reportedly helped children in his village who needed money while also indulging in luxury watches and shoes—an unusual combination of impulses that perhaps foreshadowed the contradictions to come.
In 2010, Bishnoi moved to Chandigarh to attend DAV College, and later Panjab University, where he would eventually complete a law degree. But somewhere between lectures on jurisprudence and courtroom procedure, something went terribly wrong.
The Tragedy That Changed Everything
In 2011, Bishnoi's fiancée Kajal was set on fire and murdered by criminals.
She was studying law at the same college. They had been classmates in school. The details of her killing and who was responsible remain murky in public accounts, but the impact on Bishnoi was apparently profound. Whether this trauma explains, excuses, or merely coincided with his turn toward violence is impossible to say from the outside. What's clear is that around this same time, he became deeply involved in the brutal world of Indian student politics.
University politics in India can be surprisingly violent. Campus elections often involve real power, real money, and real danger. Bishnoi joined the Panjab University Campus Students Council and formed a close alliance with a man named Satinderjit Singh—better known as Goldy Brar—who would become one of the most wanted gangsters in the country.
From Campus Politics to Criminal Enterprise
Between 2010 and 2012, police in Chandigarh filed seven First Information Reports against Bishnoi. These are formal complaints that initiate criminal investigations under Indian law. The charges included attempted murder, trespassing, assault, and robbery—all allegedly connected to student politics. He was eventually acquitted in four of these cases. Three remain pending.
But acquittal in court doesn't necessarily mean innocence, and pending cases don't mean guilt. What they do indicate is a pattern of violence that was becoming impossible to ignore.
After graduating with his law degree in 2013—yes, the man allegedly running a criminal empire actually completed law school—Bishnoi reportedly escalated dramatically. Police allege he murdered a winning candidate in student elections at a government college in Muktsar. They say he killed a rival candidate in municipal elections in Ludhiana. He expanded into liquor dealing, a profitable and dangerous trade in states where alcohol is heavily regulated or prohibited.
In 2014, Bishnoi had an armed confrontation with police in Rajasthan. He's been in custody ever since.
Building an Empire from a Cell
Here's where the story becomes genuinely strange.
Most criminal careers end when the cell door closes. Bishnoi's appeared to accelerate. While imprisoned, he allegedly forged alliances with other inmates, recruited new members, and used illegal communication channels to direct operations across India and beyond. Authorities reported that he was using Voice over Internet Protocol calls—essentially internet phone services that are harder to trace than traditional phones—to stay in contact with his associates.
The Indian government has tried moving him repeatedly, hoping that more secure facilities might cut him off from his network. In 2021, he was transferred to Tihar Jail in Delhi under charges related to the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act, a law specifically designed to combat organized criminal enterprises. In 2023, the Gujarat Anti-Terrorism Squad obtained custody and moved him to a high-security ward in Sabarmati Central Jail.
None of it seems to have worked.
The National Investigation Agency, India's primary counterterrorism law enforcement body, filed charges in 2022 claiming Bishnoi faces eighty-four criminal cases across Punjab, Rajasthan, Haryana, and Delhi. His gang reportedly includes over eight hundred members, primarily from the Jat community, operating across at least five Indian states and internationally.
The Blackbuck Vendetta
One of the most bizarre threads in this story involves a Bollywood superstar, a religious belief, and an endangered antelope.
Salman Khan is one of the most famous actors in India, a household name for decades. In 1998, he was accused of poaching blackbucks—a species of antelope—while filming in Rajasthan. This wasn't just an environmental crime in the eyes of the Bishnoi community. Blackbucks are sacred to them. The twenty-nine principles their faith is built upon include strict prohibitions against harming animals, and the blackbuck holds special religious significance.
The case dragged through Indian courts for twenty years. Khan was eventually convicted in 2018 and sentenced to five years in prison, though he was later released on bail pending appeal. For the Bishnoi community, this was an insult added to injury—not only had their sacred animal been killed, but the killer seemed to be escaping meaningful punishment.
Lawrence Bishnoi apparently decided to deliver justice himself.
In 2018, one of his associates attempted an attack on Salman Khan. It failed. But Bishnoi wasn't finished. He issued direct threats, stating that Khan would be killed in Jodhpur. In November 2023, his gang claimed responsibility for a shooting at the home of actor-singer Gippy Grewal, allegedly because of Grewal's perceived association with Khan. Grewal publicly denied any close friendship with the Bollywood star.
In October 2024, the Bishnoi gang claimed responsibility for assassinating Baba Siddique, a former cabinet minister in Maharashtra state, explicitly citing his relationship with Salman Khan as the reason.
The Murder of Sidhu Moose Wala
The crime that brought Bishnoi to international attention was the murder of Sidhu Moose Wala on May 29, 2022.
Moose Wala was a Punjabi rapper and singer who had become a cultural phenomenon. His music celebrated rural Punjabi life while also glamorizing guns and gangster imagery—a combination that resonated with millions of fans and apparently made dangerous enemies. He was shot dead in Mansa, Punjab, in broad daylight.
Goldy Brar, Bishnoi's longtime associate from their university days, publicly claimed responsibility for orchestrating the murder. He said it was done in coordination with Bishnoi. At the time, Bishnoi was supposedly in secure custody at Tihar Jail, yet police linked his gang to the killing.
The murder shocked India. Moose Wala wasn't just a singer—he had recently run for political office and had powerful connections. If someone that prominent could be killed on orders from a man in prison, nobody seemed safe.
Bishnoi's response was telling. Rather than deny involvement, he filed a plea in the Delhi High Court requesting protection from what he called a possible "fake encounter" by Punjab Police. In India, a "fake encounter" is when police extrajudicially kill a suspect and then claim the person was shot while resisting arrest or fleeing. Bishnoi seemed to be signaling that he expected retaliation, not justice.
International Allegations and Geopolitical Fallout
The story became truly explosive in 2023 when Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau accused the Indian government of involvement in the assassination of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a Sikh separatist leader killed in British Columbia in June of that year.
Nijjar was a prominent advocate for Khalistan, the proposed independent Sikh homeland that some activists want to carve out of India's Punjab state. The Khalistan movement has a complicated history involving terrorism, legitimate political grievance, and decades of violence. India considers many pro-Khalistan groups to be terrorist organizations. Canada has a large Sikh diaspora, and relations between the two countries have been tense over perceived Canadian tolerance of what India calls extremism.
Canadian authorities alleged that the Bishnoi gang was involved in Nijjar's killing—not acting independently, but being used as a tool by agents of the Indian government. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police claimed that Indian intelligence was directing criminal organizations, including Bishnoi's network, to target pro-Khalistan figures abroad.
The Washington Post reported that India's National Security Adviser Ajit Doval met with his Canadian counterpart in Singapore, where Canadian officials presented evidence linking the Bishnoi gang to Nijjar's death.
India's Ministry of External Affairs pushed back hard. Officials pointed out that India had actually asked Canada to extradite members of the Bishnoi gang, and Canada had refused. The Indian government called the Canadian allegations "really strange," essentially arguing that it made no sense to accuse India of deploying a gang whose members India itself was trying to prosecute.
The Khalistan Contradiction
The allegations about Bishnoi working with Indian intelligence to target Khalistan supporters seem to contradict his gang's other activities. His network has been linked to pro-Khalistan groups through a National Investigation Agency chargesheet that claims the syndicate has connections with the movement and aims to acquire advanced weapons using extortion proceeds.
But Bishnoi himself has publicly denied any involvement with Khalistan, calling himself a "patriot" and a "nationalist" deeply opposed to both Pakistan and the separatist movement. He's Hindu, after all, not Sikh. And his associates have murdered members of pro-Khalistan groups, including Sukhdool Singh Gill, who belonged to the Khalistan Tiger Force.
How do we reconcile a gang allegedly working with pro-Khalistan elements while also killing pro-Khalistan activists while also allegedly being used by the Indian government to target pro-Khalistan figures abroad?
Perhaps the answer is that criminal organizations don't have ideologies. They have interests. Money, power, survival. The Bishnoi gang may work with anyone and against anyone as circumstances demand. Or perhaps different factions within the gang have different allegiances. Or perhaps some of the allegations are simply wrong.
What's clear is that in late September 2025, Canada added the Bishnoi gang to its list of terrorist entities—a designation that puts them alongside groups like Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State in Canadian law.
Other Assassinations
The Bishnoi gang has claimed responsibility for other high-profile killings beyond those already mentioned.
In September 2023, Bishnoi personally claimed responsibility for the murder of Sukhdool Singh Gill in Canada. Gill was a member of the Khalistan Tiger Force, which India considers a terrorist organization. His killing suggested the gang's reach had extended across the Pacific.
In December 2023, Sukhdev Singh Gogamedi, president of the Karni Sena—a group that advocates for the Rajput community—was shot dead in Jaipur. Rohit Godara, a known member of the Bishnoi gang, claimed responsibility.
The pattern suggests a syndicate that kills across religious, political, and geographic lines. The targets have included Sikhs and Hindus, politicians and entertainers, figures in India and abroad. The only consistent thread is that all of them apparently crossed paths with the Bishnoi organization's interests in some way.
Life and Death in the Shadows
Lawrence Bishnoi denies all allegations against him. This is worth remembering. Indian law, like most legal systems, presumes innocence until guilt is proven. Many of the eighty-four cases against him have not resulted in convictions. The nature of organized crime makes it difficult to establish direct responsibility—bosses give orders, but underlings pull triggers.
At the same time, his associates have publicly claimed responsibility for murders in his name. He has issued threats on the record. He has been in continuous custody for over a decade while his alleged organization has only grown more powerful and more deadly.
The story of Lawrence Bishnoi raises uncomfortable questions about the Indian criminal justice system, about the porousness of its prison walls, about the relationship between crime and politics, and about the possibility that state actors might find common cause with gangsters when their enemies align.
He was born into a community that venerates life, that protects wildlife, that follows principles of nonviolence toward nature. He completed a law degree. He lost his fiancée to murder.
Now he allegedly commands an army of eight hundred from a high-security cell, threatens movie stars over the killing of antelopes, and has become a figure in an international diplomatic crisis between two democracies.
Whatever the full truth turns out to be, the story of Lawrence Bishnoi is a window into a world where the boundaries between crime, politics, religion, and state power have become dangerously unclear.