In the Punjabi village of Dutarawali, sits the house of Lawrence Bishnoi. It sits just on the Indian side of the border with Pakistan and is a spacious, whitewashed house, protected by a seven-foot boundary wall, topped with barbed wire and CCTV cameras, says The Guardian. “The symbol of Om is curled on its brown iron door, which has no nameplate.”
At 33, Lawrence Bishnoi is “India's most notorious gangster”. In October 2024, members of the Bishnoi gang carried out one of the most high-profile murders in recent history, gunning down Baba Siddique, a senior Indian politician, in Mumbai. Lawrence Bishnoi has also been linked to a number of killings and attempted assassinations on Canadian soil.
“He has a well-publicised hit list, with dozens of names on it, including Bollywood stars and stand-up comics” – an earlier target was Siddhu Moose Wala, a Punjabi rapper with a global following. But what is remarkable about these killings is that they were all orchestrated from a “high-security prison”, where Bishnoi has been incarcerated for more than ten years awaiting trial on several counts of murder and extortion. In fact, his most serious crimes have taken place while in custody.
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“From his cell… Bishnoi allegedly commands an empire” quite capable of “orchestrating a political assassination halfway around the world”, says CNN. He's the kingpin of a gang numbering around 700 members, according to India's National Investigation Agency.
Last autumn, Canada designated the group a terrorist entity after the Trudeau government accused the Modi government of using Bishnoi's gang “to carry out crimes against Sikh dissidents on Canadian soil”. That elevated Bishnoi from being one of India's most famous mob bosses – a household name in his homeland – to global notoriety. It also set up a diplomatic incident with New Delhi, which summarily dismissed Trudeau's allegations, claiming there was no evidence to back them up.
Lawrence Bishnoi shares many of the ruling administration's strong Hindu nationalist convictions, reportedly considering himself “a warrior” for the cause. And in “lawless” India, “where an atmosphere of official impunity is combined with the ever-present threat of violence”, he has become an icon, says The Guardian – “a model” for India's great masses of unemployed youth. “Bishnoi has come to exemplify a nihilistic ideology born of desperation: grab what you can, by any means necessary”, and punish anyone insulting the creed.
Lawrence Bishnoi's image of a Hindu don
Born Balkaran Bishnoi in 1993 to a relatively wealthy landowning family, Bishnoi's father was a former police officer. His mother, who had big dreams for him, renamed him after Henry Lawrence, a 19th-century British administrator who established a string of military-style schools. In 2010, Lawrence Bishnoi nrolled at university to study law, but “drifted towards the underbelly of student politics, falling in with a thuggish crowd”, says the Financial Times. After becoming involved in brawls and shootings, “his descent was swift”. A shoot-out with police in 2014 marked the start of the decade-long jail stretch he is still serving.
During his stint behind bars, Lawrence Bishnoi has perfected managing his image as a revolutionary and has made a virtue of his vegetarian diet and celibacy. No wonder he is celebrated in the mainstream press as a “Hindu don”. A streaming platform, Zee5, has just announced a documentary series on his life, which will further burnish his image. “Separating the man from the myth” is becoming ever more difficult, says the BBC. But the main question surrounding Lawrence Bishnoi hasn't gone away. The control he exerts “would be impossible without powerful allies”. Exactly how far up India's chain of command do they go?
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