A ‘gangster’ is blowing up India-Canada relations—from behind bars

Lawrence Bishnoi, a 31-year-old vegetarian with a handlebar mustache who authorities say controls a violent gang from his high-security prison cell in India, is at the center of a diplomatic brawl between Canada and India.

To Indian law-enforcement officials, Bishnoi is a “dreaded gangster” who over the past decade has made a daring prison break, threatened a Bollywood star, and found his gang accused of killing a rapper considered a rival. The notoriety has made him a hero in the Punjabi village where he grew up.

But in Canada, he is accused of being an Indian-government enforcer, whose criminal network violently punishes political dissidents and critics of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Canada says Bishnoi’s group has helped Modi’s government contract criminal groups to attack and kill Canadian Sikh separatists considered by India as terrorists.

India calls the allegations preposterous, and both countries expelled top diplomats this month, exchanging fiery condemnations.

All of the attention has only bolstered Bishnoi’s emergence as an object of pop-culture fascination in India. A coming web series, “Lawrence—a Gangster Story,” will chronicle his life.

Authorities say his gang’s spread into Canada is part of his ambition to be a global player in the underworld. His network—dubbed this year by India’s counterterrorism force as “the dreaded gangster Lawrence Bishnoi’s organized terror-crime syndicate”—is also active in Australia, Italy and Dubai, police and security officials said.

“Bishnoi’s idea is to become a notorious don,” said a senior Indian police official.

The son of a wealthy landowner, Bishnoi comes from a Hindu sect—called the Bishnoi—that reveres nature and adheres to strict vegetarianism. Bishnoi forgoes even tea to avoid getting addicted to caffeine, says his cousin.

He was first charged in 2010 for allegedly rioting with a deadly weapon as a rowdy university student organizer, according to court records.

Public records show little about Bishnoi’s life after his student arrest, but in 2015, he made a brazen escape from authorities. He was being taken back to prison after a court appearance and when his police detail stopped for dinner at a roadside restaurant, Bishnoi ran and jumped into a waiting white car driven by a fellow gang member. An accomplice driving another car tried to run over the police officers, according to court filings. Bishnoi was recaptured two months later.

He has since remained in jail, law-enforcement officials said, charged with arson, murder, extortion, drug smuggling and terrorism—all of which he has denied. He is awaiting trial in the city of Ahmedabad in the high-security wing of India’s Sabarmati Central Jail—a prison that once held Mahatma Gandhi.

His cousin Ramesh Bishnoi says Bishnoi is under constant surveillance in a small cell in solitary confinement. He wakes up before dawn every morning, practices yoga and meditates.

Despite such restrictions on Bishnoi, his gang has grown in size and ambition. Indian criminals can often get access to cellphones in jail by bribing guards and officials, and it is likely Bishnoi is using the same tactics to communicate with and control his gang, said police and security officials.

Indian officials have denied that Bishnoi has access to cellphones. “He doesn’t have a lavish lifestyle in jail,” said Sweta Shrimali, deputy inspector general of police at the Ahmedabad jail.

But Bishnoi has been able to get his hands on a phone in the past. He participated in an interview that was broadcast on Indian television in 2023 while he was in another prison, in which he said people would throw phones to him over the prison wall.

Canadian law-enforcement officials and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau this month thrust the Bishnoi group’s presence there into the open. Canadian police said Indian government officials hired Bishnoi gang members to commit several attacks in Canada, including recent murders. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police said three murders between 2022 and 2024 were connected to Indian-government involvement.

India has long complained that Canada is allowing extremism to germinate in the local Sikh community, as activists agitate for the creation of an independent Sikh homeland called Khalistan centered in the Indian state of Punjab. India has outlawed the movement at home, and feels Canada isn’t doing enough to tamp it down.

Bishnoi in the Indian television interview said he considered himself an Indian nationalist and was opposed to Khalistan. “I don’t think our country should be broken into pieces,” he said.

India denied Canada’s claim that Indian authorities worked with Bishnoi. A spokesman for India’s foreign ministry said that India has over several years warned Canada about infiltration by members of Bishnoi’s group in Canada, but Canadian law-enforcement officials didn’t act.

Canada has alleged the involvement of Indian government agents in the 2023 murder of Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar. Canada has charged four Indians with Nijjar’s killing, all of whom were on student visas. Another Sikh, Sukhdool Singh Gill, was murdered in his home in the Canadian city of Winnipeg in September 2023—a day after he appeared on India’s most-wanted list.

Bishnoi’s connections to Canada can be traced to 2022. That year, one of Bishnoi’s closest associates who had moved to Canada—Satinderjit Singh, known as Goldy Brar—took credit for killing Sidhu Moose Wala, a popular Punjabi rapper who lived in Canada and whose death was mourned by Canadian hip-hop superstar Drake. Eight attackers allegedly chased Moose Wala in Punjab and shot him in his jeep.

Brar, who is wanted in India, has strong ties to Canada. He moved to Brampton, a city just outside of Toronto, in 2017 on a student visa. Brar couldn’t be reached for comment.

Earlier this year, an alleged member of Bishnoi’s group claimed to be behind a shooting at the Canadian home of popular Punjabi singer AP Dhillon. The shooter filmed himself firing a gun at Dhillon’s home, and posted the video on social media.

Such is Bishnoi’s notoriety that it is becoming difficult to separate fact from myth. In a 2020 court filing, Bishnoi claimed he wasn’t involved in many of the crimes being attributed to him. “He was already behind bars and could not have participated in any manner and the commission of the offences alleged therein,” said the filing.

Bishnoi comes from a village in the Indian state of Punjab and played cricket and volleyball and rode horses, said friends of his family and neighbors. The head of the village council, Surinder Kumar Bagria, recalls Bishnoi as a “disciplined, well-behaved, God-fearing boy and a bright student.”

Things changed after he went to college to study law in the state capital of Chandigarh, said Bagria. He entered a violent world of student politics, where rival factions routinely used violence to intimidate members. From there, authorities allege, his life of crime began.

In his childhood village, Bishnoi is revered.

“He’s our hero,” said Praveen Kumar, a resident. “Hero of our village, hero of society.”

Write to Vipal Monga at vipal.monga@wsj.com, Vibhuti Agarwal at vibhuti.agarwal@wsj.com and Rajesh Roy at rajesh.roy@wsj.com