Canada declares India’s Bishnoi gang a terrorist entity

Canada on Monday declared India’s Bishnoi gang a “terrorist entity,” targeting a group linked to a murder that triggered a breakdown in relations between Ottawa and New Delhi last year.

Canada has accused the notorious syndicate Bishnoi gang — known for assassinations and extortion in India — of possible involvement in the murder of prominent Sikh activist and Canadian citizen Hardeep Singh Nijjar near Vancouver.

Nijjar, who had advocated for a separate Sikh state carved out of India, was shot dead in a parking lot in 2023.

Following the incident, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police have alleged that members of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government worked with the “Bishnoi Group (Bishnoi gang)” to target Sikh activists in Canada.

India furiously rejected those charges, sparking a diplomatic fallout that saw both countries expel top diplomats.

Canada’s Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree said Monday’s terrorism designation gave Ottawa “more powerful and effective tools to confront” the Bishnoi gang.

A statement from his office called the Bishnoi gang “a transnational criminal organization operating primarily out of India, with a presence in Canada, that generates terror through extortion and intimidation.”

The move comes as Prime Minister Mark Carney, who took office in March, seeks to repair ties with India that collapsed under his predecessor, Justin Trudeau.

Carney has courted India as part of an effort to deepen Canada’s trade ties in Asia, which the prime minister says is essential to offset the impact of the trade war with the United States.

Carney met one-on-one with Modi at the Canada-hosted G7 meeting in June, stressing “the significant commercial links between Canada and India.”

Also Read: Who is Lawrence Bishnoi, at centre of spat between India and Canada?

Back in October 2024, India and Canada expelled six of each other’s diplomats in tit-for-tat moves after Ottawa accused Indian government agents of links to the 2023 murder of a Sikh separatist leader near Vancouver.

WHO IS LAWRENCE BISHNOI?

The NIA has accused the 31-year-old law graduate, in jail since 2015, of running a trans-national crime syndicate.

Born in the northern state of Punjab, Bishnoi is short and lean, sporting a beard and moustache when seen in public for court appearances.

In statements, the NIA has said he runs his syndicate from jails in different states, as well as countries such as Canada, through associates, who have been in contact with ‘pro-Khalistani’ elements in neighbouring Nepal and other countries.

However, Bishnoi has said he opposes Khalistan, or the demand for an independent Sikh state, and was not ‘anti-national’, in an interview with a private news channel last year.

The video of the interview has since been taken down and police are investigating how the video came about.