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Journalism of Courage
In 2021, when a Delhi Police team on the trail of a murder accused landed up in a village in Punjab’s Sangrur district, they were in for a surprise. It turned out that the man they were after — Delhi-based Mohammad Shahrukh, an associate of gangster Lawrence Bishnoi — had squeezed in a quick visit to an unadvertised horse auction.
The police inquiry revealed that while the winning bid, of Rs 95 lakh, was made by a baba who headed a dera in the state, the second highest bid, at Rs 90 lakh, was by a representative of actor Salman Khan. With the actor not on the scene, Shahrukh had turned his attention to the winning baba and decided to make some money off him – allegedly extorting Rs 1 crore from him.
Police say that until they stumbled on the horse auction, they hadn’t realised how closely the Bishnoi gang had been monitoring actor Salman Khan’s movements, purportedly over him shooting a blackbuck in 1998. It’s an obsession that has continued to this day, with the gang issuing multiple threats to Salman, including firing outside his house in November 2023 and the October 12 killing of NCP leader Baba Siddique, the actor’s close friend.
Over the past two years, Bishnoi’s name has cropped up in connection with some of the most headline-grabbing crimes – from the killing of popular Punjabi singer Sidhu Moosewala on June 6, 2022, to Canada’s recent allegation that “agents” of the Indian government were collaborating with the Bishnoi gang to spread terror on Canadian soil, a charge that India has denied.
All this, while the man himself has been in jail since 2014 after his first shootout with the police at a picket en route to Rajasthan’s Salasar Balaji Temple. He is currently lodged in Ahmedabad’s Sabarmati Central Jail.
Despite his decade-long incarceration, Bishnoi’s network has only grown, states the National Investigation Agency (NIA) in its 128-page chargesheet filed in March 2023 in an Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) case against him and 15 others. Likening his rise to that of fugitive gangster Dawood Ibrahim, the agency believes that from his jail cell, Bishnoi controls a gang of “700 operatives, 300 among them from his home state Punjab”.
Dismissing these allegations, Bishnoi’s advocate Rajani told The Indian Express, “No phone has been recovered from Bishnoi in jail. There is no mode of communication which has been established by any investigative agency.”
Born Balkaran Brar, there are several stories surrounding why and how he became “Lawrence Bishnoi”, a name he adopted while in school. He reportedly told a Delhi Police Special Cell team that it was suggested by his paternal aunt and that “Lawrence sounded better”.
Sitting on a cot under a banyan tree in Fazilka district’s Dotaranwali village, Bishnoi’s ancestral village, his cousin Ramesh Bishnoi, 50, tells The Indian Express that the family had never imagined in their wildest dreams that “our child would turn out like this”.
“Our family has always been wealthy. Lawrence’s father was a constable with the Haryana Police and owns 110 acres in the village. Bishnoi always wore expensive clothes and shoes. In fact, even now, his family spends Rs 35-40 lakh annually on him in jail,” says Ramesh, who last saw the gangster around a decade ago when he was brought to Abohar for a court hearing.
The NIA chargesheet traces Bishnoi’s evolution into a criminal mastermind, starting 2008, when he went behind bars for the first time, allegedly for firing at a rival during the students’ union elections at Panjab University (PU). He was then a student of law at PU in Chandigarh. According to his police dossier, 18 of the 84 cases registered against Bishnoi since 2008 were filed while he was in college, where he was part of the Student Organisation of Panjab University (SOPU).
It was student politics, the dossier states, that brought him close to Sampat Nehra, Virender Pratap Singh alias Kala Rana, Satwinderjit Singh alias Goldy Brar and Amandeep Multani – men who would end up being part of his gang’s core team. These associations furthered Bishnoi’s descent into the world of crime, triggered by a spat he was embroiled in during his SOPU days. “While campaigning for a nominee in 2008, Bishnoi and the others got into a spat with students from a rival faction,” an officer says.
Police reports say Bishnoi’s friend fired the first warning shot and others followed suit. Five days later, “yaaron ka yaar (an extremely loyal friend)” Bishnoi and seven others reportedly set fire to the car belonging to a person campaigning for a rival candidate. “Bishnoi and his eight friends were arrested within 10 days. In jail, he met Ranjeet Dupla, an arms supplier who currently runs a transport business in the US. The duo introduced each other to their criminal acquaintances,” the officer says.
Two months after he stepped out of jail, Bishnoi, who had a fondness for bodybuilding and expensive clothes, got caught up in college elections once again. “He would visit other colleges and get into spats with rival candidates. Several cases were registered against him, but all of them were quashed after both parties arrived at a compromise,” an officer says.
In 2010, after a failed attempt at contesting for SOPU president, he allegedly assaulted his rival and ended up in custody. Out on bail, in 2011, he contested the SOPU election once again for the same post. This time, he won.
In 2012, Bishnoi graduated from Panjab University with an LLB degree, but he and his friends continued to dabble in student politics of the most violent kind. In 2013, he nominated a SOPU candidate for the president’s post. While campaigning, Bishnoi and his associates allegedly killed the rival nominee and fled.
“His luck ran out when he was caught at a police picket in 2014, while on his way to a Rajasthan temple,” the officer says.
Police custody, however, failed to end Bishnoi’s run. By now, he had allegedly consolidated his position as a gang leader. In 2015, during a court appearance, he escaped police custody, allegedly to avenge his cousin’s murder. Bishnoi was later arrested from Punjab’s Fazilka.
“Around this time, with Bishnoi in jail, his friend Goldy Brar started operating the gang,” an officer says. Lodged in jail along with his close associate Sampat Nehra, who was arrested by the Haryana STF in Hyderabad in 2018 for allegedly planning to kill Salman Khan, Bishnoi joined hands with gangster Kala Jathedi, though the two fell out a few months ago. Police say that while they were together, the Bishnoi-Jathedi gang committed over 30 murders in Delhi, Punjab, Rajasthan, and Haryana.
Among Bishnoi’s biggest rivals was Davinder Bambiha, who allegedly ran an extortion racket in Chandigarh, Mohali and Panchkula, and was killed in a police encounter in 2016. The inter-gang rivalry often led to shootouts in Chandigarh, Delhi and Punjab. The gangs not only fought over protection money, but for supremacy over the Punjab music industry and kabaddi players.
In 2021, Bishnoi had told the police that he “wanted to leave the crime world and live peacefully”. In 2023, he was asked the same question. This time, however, he said, “I have been in jail for the last 10 years and it’s very unlikely that I will come out now. I want to become the Number 1 criminal in the country.”
(Input from Kamaldeep Singh Brar, Fazilka)
