A convicted member of the Lawrence Bishnoi gang testified at his deportation hearing on Thursday that he was paid $4,000 to open fire on a house on Vancouver Island.
Abjeet Kingra told the Immigration and Refugee Board that a co-worker at a Winnipeg moving company recruited him to shoot the B.C. home of Punjabi singer A.P. Dhillon.
“He told me that no one should be at home, and you just need to fire outside the house, and you will get money,” Kingra, an Indian citizen, testified at his hearing.
Asked why the co-worker, also an Indian citizen, offered him the contract, Kingra replied, “I don’t know, maybe I am an idiot, that’s why.”
“I’m not that much intelligent,” he said.
The Canada Border Services Agency has asked the Refugee Board to order Kingra’s deportation on the grounds that he is a member of a criminal organization, the Bishnoi group.
The Board said it would release its decision on Monday.
Kingra is one of the first alleged Bishnoi members to face a public deportation hearing amid a crackdown on extortion crimes targeting South Asian Canadians.
The case is part of Canada’s response to the epidemic of extortions that have spread fear in cities with large South Asian populations, particularly in B.C., Alberta, Winnipeg and Ontario.
Testifying by phone from the prison where he is being held in Mission, B.C., Kingra offered a glimpse into the workings of extortion gangs.
As a witness, Kingra displayed remarkable memory lapses, responding to many questions posed by the CBSA with, “I don’t remember.”
He denied being a Bishnoi member and said he was unaware the gang was behind the shooting he carried out until after he had done it.
“I have nothing to do with this gang,” he said.
But like many extortion gang members, he said he came to Canada from India on a student visa in 2018 and worked a variety of jobs in B.C. and Manitoba.
He said that when a friend, Vikram Sharma, asked him to carry out the shooting, he did not initially agree, but after pondering the matter for a few days, he decided to do it.
He said he did it for money. “Because I thought I would be able to help my family back home in India, because my job wasn’t going well here.”
The two of them drove from Winnipeg to Vancouver Island. They first scouted Dhillon’s house and then returned later in the evening.
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After Sharma used gasoline to torch the vehicles in the driveway, Kingra fired 14 bullets at the home. Kingra used a phone to record a video of the shooting.
He said Sharma told him to make the video because “only with the proof you can get money.”
He said he didn’t know how the video had found its way to the Bishnoi gang, which posted it online after taking responsibility for the incident.
He denied knowing the Bishnoi group was behind the shooting until he heard news reports the next day, and saw the video he had recorded.
“Even I was surprised that it was everywhere on the news channels in the morning,” he said. “I made the video because he [Sharma] said, ‘I will set the fire and my hands won’t be free.’”
He also denied knowing who had contacted Sharma about the job, where he got the gun, how long they took to drive across Canada and where they stayed.
He said Sharma paid him in cash a few days after the shooting. He said he did not know where Sharma got the money.
Sharma fled Canada following the shooting and is now wanted by the RCMP.
A CBSA official, Jasbir Sandhu, argued that the Bishnoi gang uses a system of insulation, so that each member only knows the person above them in hierarchy.
Kingra pleaded guilty to the attack and is serving a six-year sentence, while awaiting trial for an August 2024 shooting in Surrey, B.C.
The judge who sentenced Kingra found he had committed the crime “at the behest of a criminal organization known as the Bishnoi gang.”
Dhillon was targeted because someone who had appeared in one of his music videos had “fallen afoul of this organization,” the judge wrote.
Sandhu said the attack was not an extortion. Rather, the gang was sending a message that it could reach anyone it wanted, he said.
As police have stepped up their efforts against extortion gangs, they have come across hundreds of suspects who should not be in Canada.
The cases have been referred to the CBSA, which said that as of May 7, it had opened 446 investigations and issued 118 removal orders.
Fifty-five suspects had been expelled from Canada, the CBSA said. A handful of more serious cases have been sent for deportation hearings, among them Kingra.
The gang is headed by Lawrence Bishnoi, a crime boss who has managed to run his organization despite having been imprisoned in India since 2015.
“The Bishnoi gang’s major operations continue to be orchestrated by Mr. Bishnoi himself from behind bars,” the CBSA official told the hearing.
He said Bishnoi uploads selfies from prison, as well as videos and photos of the gang’s activities, “in order to recruit young followers.”
Along with his lieutenant, Goldy Brar, Bishnoi has recruited Indian youths to extort money, often from Canadian Sikh business owners and entertainers.
To underscore the seriousness of their threats, Bishnoi members typically drive to the homes of their victims at night, shoot at them and set fire to their properties.
As Global News first reported, the Bishnoi gang brazenly sent a letter to a B.C. police station last August claiming it had 1,000 foot soldiers willing to carry out shootings.
Adding to the crisis, the Indian government has used the Bishnoi gang to advance its interests in Canada through violence, the RCMP has alleged.
As part of its fight against Canadian Sikhs who support independence for India’s Punjab, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government allegedly hired Bishnoi.
At India’s behest, the gang arranged for local members to kill Hardeep Singh Nijjar, president of a Sikh temple in Surrey, B.C., on June 18, 2023.
Nijjar was a leader of the Khalistan movement, which is a thorn in India’s side for advocating the independence of Punjab.
A second assassination planned by the Indian prime minister’s intelligence wing was disrupted by the United States. The target was also a Canadian.
Although the RCMP took the unusual step of warning the public about India’s role in violence, Prime Minister Mark Carney has re-engaged with Modi.
In response to U.S. President Donald Trump’s trade war, Carney has sought expanded trade with India, as with Canada’s other top foreign interference adversary, China.
India’s actions are part of a trend in which foreign states are hiring organized crime groups to conduct political assassinations in Western countries.
Canadian Sikh groups are concerned that Carney is neglecting their security concerns as he looks to Asia for new export markets amid White House hostility.
On Wednesday, Carney congratulated Modi on X for becoming India’s longest-serving prime minister, and spoke of a renewed Canada-India partnership.
On May 1, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service reported that India remained one of the “main perpetrators of foreign interference and espionage against Canada.”
Stewart.Bell@globalnews.ca
