The US Department of Justice (DOJ) has unsealed a major indictment against Indian gangster Lawrence Bishnoi and six associates, accusing them of serious crimes including murder, extortion, trafficking of banned drugs and human trafficking. Bishnoi, 33, has been imprisoned in India since 2015 but is alleged to have directed a string of crimes in the United States between 2022 and 2026 from behind bars.
The document, unsealed in the federal court for the Central District of California, refers to the network as the “Bishnoi Organized Crime Group,” or “Bishnoi OCG.” According to the indictment, members of the group targeted prominent cultural, political and business figures in India and in the diaspora. US investigators say that over the years the syndicate grew into an “international crime network” with its main headquarters in India but active members in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Europe and Australia.
Despite being in prison, Bishnoi directed associates around the world using smuggled mobile phones and internet-based communication (VoIP) devices, the indictment says. It names Satinderjit Singh, alias Goldy Brar, as the group’s principal leader in North America and Rohit Godara in Europe, with Sukhraj Singh Kang acting as its chief lieutenant in India. Three others – Rajan Bhatti, Bhulwan and Sumit – are also named in the document.
Among the most striking crimes attributed to the group is the killing of Khalistani separatist leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Canada. According to the DOJ, Bishnoi and Goldy Brar ordered the killing of Nijjar outside the Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara in Surrey, British Columbia, on June 18, 2023. Four people were involved in the conspiracy, the indictment says, two of whom opened fire.
The indictment also links the group to the May 29, 2022 killing of the prominent Indian singer and rapper Sidhu Moose Wala in Mansa, Punjab, and says the gang later admitted ordering the murder in a media interview. Moose Wala, a Congress leader whose real name was Shubhdeep Singh Sidhu, was shot dead by unidentified attackers in Jawaharke village of Mansa district.
On the attack on Bollywood actor Salman Khan, the indictment says Bishnoi repeatedly expressed a desire to kill the actor and television personality between 2022 and 2026, leading to an attack on Khan’s residence in April 2024. The gang had threatened Khan for years, in a feud rooted in a 1998 blackbuck poaching case.
In the case of actor and singer Gippy Grewal (Rupinder Singh Grewal), the indictment says Bishnoi claimed responsibility for a shooting at his residence on November 24, 2023. In a Facebook post the next day, Bishnoi wrote: “No one can save you from our hands.” Between December 2023 and March 2026, the document says, the gang repeatedly contacted Grewal and his manager with death threats and demanded large sums of money.
The DOJ also cited the December 23, 2024 killing of drug trafficker Sunil Yadav in Stockton, California. According to the document, Goldy Brar and Rohit Godara claimed responsibility for the killing on behalf of the Bishnoi gang in a warning posted on Facebook: “All our enemies be ready – wherever on earth you go, we will reach there.”
বাংলায় মূল প্রতিবেদন পড়ুন · Read the original Bengali report