The United States has charged Lawrence Bishnoi, the imprisoned head of an Indian criminal gang, and his North American deputy with directing the 2023 murder of Sikh separatist leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Canada, which plunged relations between Ottawa and New Delhi into crisis.
A federal indictment unsealed in Los Angeles alleges Bishnoi and Satinderjeet Singh, also known as “Goldy Brar,” ordered the shooting of Nijjar outside a Sikh temple in the Vancouver suburb of Surrey, British Columbia, on June 18, 2023.
The indictment says Bishnoi directed the operation from an Indian jail cell using smuggled cellphones and provided a co-conspirator with a photograph and multiple addresses of Nijjar’s to facilitate the killing. Singh, a childhood friend of Bishnoi, allegedly directed the North American operations of the criminal group, known as the “Lawrence Bishnoi Organized Crime Group.”
Nijjar’s killing triggered a diplomatic crisis after then-Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said months later that Canadian authorities were “actively pursuing credible allegations” linking Indian government agents to the murder. New Delhi rejected the claim as absurd.
The US indictment charging Bishnoi and Singh does not allege any Indian government role in the killing.
