Lawrence Bishnoi is an Indian gangster and criminal known for his involvement in organized crime, particularly in the Punjab re...
Lawrence Bishnoi is an Indian gangster and criminal known for his involvement in organized crime, particularly in the Punjab region. He gained notoriety for his alleged connections to various criminal activities, including extortion, drug trafficking, and contract killings. Bishnoi has been linked to multiple high-profile cases and is considered a significant figure in the world of organized crime in India. His name has also come up in discussions related to gang wars and rivalries within the criminal underworld.
Bishnoi Life: Born in 12th February 1993, near the Pakistan border in India’s Sikh-majority Punjab state, a village in Ferozepur. Lawrence Bishnoi was “exceptionally fair, nearly a pinkish complexion, and almost European rather than Indian”, according to his mother, Sunita, a graduate-turned-homemaker, His father was a police constable with the Haryana Police. Four years after Lawrence’s birth, his father left the police force in 1997 and took up farming..Bishnoi’s family was well-off and owned more than 100 acres (40 hectares) of farming land in Punjab’s Duttaranwali village. After high school, Bishnoi went to Chandigarh, the state’s capital, to study law. There, at DAV College, he stepped into student politics and allegedly ventured into the criminal world by locking horns with rival student groups. Bishnoi served as the president of the college’s student body. He was arrested over charges of arson and attempt to murder and sent to a jail in Chandigarh, where he reportedly came under the influence of other imprisoned gangsters. In Punjab, it is a common phenomenon that the gangsters come from “well-off, good families”.
Among his young followers, Bishnoi is highly revered as “a man of principle”, requesting anonymity, in Rajasthan, where the Bishnoi gang has recruited members. “He positions himself as this righteous bachelor, a celibate, often signing off with remarks like “Jai Shri Ram (Hail Lord Ram)”, a Hindu right-wing war cry.
Bishnoi has been shuffling between prisons for more than a decade now but has still extended his crime syndicate to the national capital, New Delhi, and neighboring states, and fought turf wars with rival gangs in Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Punjab. He is known to have active associates across Canada and the United States.
WHERE IS HE?: Bishnoi is an inmate of the Sabarmati central jail in the western industrial city of Ahmedabad in Gujarat state. Media have said he has been moved around different prisons out of concern for his safety - and his ability to break jail rules.
Bishnoi’s feud with Khan goes back nearly 26 years over the actor’s killing of two antelopes on a recreational hunting trip in Rajasthan while shooting a film in the western state in 1998. The Bishnoi religious sect considers the species sacred. In April this year, two members of the gang were arrested for firing at Khan’s home in Mumbai.
More recently, Bishnoi’s gang claimed responsibility for the murder of a 66-year-old Muslim politician, Baba Siddique, in Mumbai’s posh Bandra area last weekend. Siddique was a three-time legislator and former minister in the Maharashtra state government. He was widely known for his closeness with Bollywood celebrities, most notably with actor Salman Khan.
Another high-profile murder in which his name surfaced was that of Sukhdev Singh Gogamedi, president of the Rashtriya Rajput Karni Sena. He was killed in the living room of his house on 5th December 2023 in Jodhpur, Rajasthan.
Bishnoi first captured national attention when he was linked with the killing of hip-hop icon, Punjabi rapper Sidhu Moose Wala, on May 29, 2022.
In September 2021, gangsters Lawrence Bishnoi and Goldy Brar claimed responsibility for killing gangster Sukhdool Singh alias Sukha Duneke of the Davinder Bambiha gang in Canada.
WHAT HAS CANADA ACCUSED HIM OF?: Canada did not state specific charges, but the RCMP said there was "specific targeting" of those supporting Khalistan in the country. It named the Bishnoi organized crime group as having earlier claimed some of those actions, and accused it of being linked to Indian agents.
It is believed that there are over 700 members in Bishnoi’s gang with some of the top names living comfortably abroad. He was arrested by Faridkot police on 5 March 2015 after an encounter with a moving car. A huge cache of foreign weapons was captured. It has been more than nine years since Bishnoi stepped into the open as a free man, but despite being under heavy police vigilance, being watched by Central agencies, Bishnoi is successfully executing murders and extortions around the world. -Veena Rajasekhar.
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