New Delhi, Aug 21 (IANS) The rise of organised gangs in Punjab and Haryana has taken on a transnational character, with gangs such as the Lawrence Bishnoi network demonstrating how criminal syndicates can operate across borders even when their leaders are lodged in Indian jails, and the challenge now extends beyond street-level policing to disrupting their communication, recruitment, finances and overseas operations, according to commentator and former police officer V.N. Rai.
In a recent analysis in Saviours Magazine, Rai argues that the emergence of these gangs has become deeply embedded in the region’s politics and popular culture. The Punjab and Haryana model, he points out, is increasingly fluid, technology-driven and connected to the diaspora.
The scale of the challenge has also drawn judicial attention. The Punjab and Haryana High Court has asked the Haryana government to place on record its policy framework and institutional measures to combat organised criminal gangs. The court sought details of preventive policing, investigation, intelligence gathering and coordination among different agencies.
The international reach of the Bishnoi gang has provided a stark example of the problem. A classified December 2025 report prepared by the Canada Border Services Agency, titled ‘The Bishnoi Gang: An Emerging Threat in Canada’, became public during court proceedings there. According to the report, the gang has been linked to high-profile killings, extortion threats and shootings in Canada. It also highlighted the alleged exploitation of immigration pathways to move operatives from India to North America.
Bishnoi has been lodged in the high-security Sabarmati Central Jail in Ahmedabad since 2023 under orders restricting his transfer or physical custody by police forces from other states. His imprisonment, however, has not prevented the wider network associated with his gang from operating through associates and intermediaries.
Rai observes that this is one of the defining features of the current gang ecosystem.
“Gangsters based in Indian jails operate in tandem with associates in Canada/US/Central Asia,” Rai wrote in the Saviours Magazine, describing a network that uses social media for recruitment, extortion, contract killings, and drug-related money laundering.
“The ability to operate from inside prison has created a particularly difficult policing problem.”
According to Rai, being lodged in an Indian jail can work to the advantage of gang leaders because they can oversee the domestic side of international criminal transactions through phones and emissaries.
“Their physical absence from the streets does not necessarily mean that their influence has disappeared,” he highlighted.
The gang phenomenon received a major boost in public visibility after controversial video-conference interviews with Bishnoi emerged while he was in Punjab and Rajasthan Police custody in 2022.
An investigation subsequently found that the police had allegedly facilitated the interviews. A DSP was sacked, and six officers were suspended following this incident.
Rai argued that publicity itself has become a weapon.
“After a crime, videos claiming responsibility often circulate rapidly on social media. Such material can magnify fear among potential targets while strengthening the gang’s reputation among young recruits. The resulting media attention can also create a cycle in which every fresh crime generates more publicity and further enhances the gang’s image,” he said in the article.
This presents a serious challenge for the police in Punjab and Haryana, which have responded by establishing specialised units backed by intelligence and coordination mechanisms. The two states have recorded significant arrests, surveillance operations and prosecutions.
Yet, Rai warned that conventional policing alone cannot dismantle an organisation that functions like a business.
“Organised crime is a business,” he writes. “You don’t shut a business by neutralising its delivery boys.”
According to Rai, the police response must, therefore, target the entire structure rather than focusing only on the individuals who execute individual crimes.
He pointed out two areas that require attention: publicity and recruitment. Gang leaders need a constant supply of young operatives, often drawn from villages and economically vulnerable communities. Rai suggested that preventive policing must, therefore, extend into communities, with career counsellors, social influencers, religious leaders, and political activists helping counter the attraction of gang culture.
The second challenge is command and control. Rai proposed snapping communication channels used by imprisoned gang leaders and frequent jail shifting. Such measures, he argues, would require stronger technological coordination between prison authorities, intelligence agencies and police forces.
Following the money is equally important. Extortion, narcotics and contract killings generate substantial illegal revenues, allowing gangs to sustain their networks and recruit new operatives. Rai called for relentless financial investigation, asset confiscation and a dedicated financial task force to weaken the economic foundations of organised crime.
He says that India has confronted different forms of organised crime in earlier decades. Bihar’s criminal networks of the 1990s were closely associated with caste conflicts and political patronage. Uttar Pradesh witnessed the growth of land, mining, and contract mafias in the 2000s. Mumbai’s underworld developed international connections through smuggling, real estate, film financing and hawala networks. The Punjab-Haryana gangs represent a newer phase.
Rai described them as “fluid, transnational, Instagram-glorified, and business-driven”. Their operations can stretch from Indian prisons to overseas associates, while recruitment and intimidation are amplified through digital platforms.
The crackdown by Punjab and Haryana Police forces has, therefore, become an important part of the response, but Rai contended that arrests alone cannot provide a lasting solution.
“Speedy trials, witness protection, financial investigations, prison security, intelligence sharing and preventive policing must work together,” he stressed.
The larger objective, he suggested, should be to make gang membership less attractive to young people and break the perception that entering organised crime is a path from which there is “no way back”.
“A credible rehabilitation programme, backed by community intervention and opportunities for legitimate employment, could help challenge that fatalistic belief. The battle against gangs such as the Bishnoi network is consequently no longer a question of catching individual shooters. It is about dismantling an ecosystem that can recruit in Indian villages, issue instructions from prisons, raise money through crime and maintain influence through associates abroad.”
The state has begun responding with specialised policing and stronger enforcement. The next test will be whether those efforts can keep pace with gangs that have learned to operate beyond the reach of a single police station, state or even country. Indian agencies have stepped up a crackdown on organised criminal networks operating from Punjab and Haryana, with the Bishnoi gang among the most prominent targets.
The crackdown has extended beyond India. In July, the US-led Operation Hard Ball resulted in 24 arrests across the US, Canada and Europe, with 37 members of three Punjab-origin syndicates charged. The operation targeted networks linked to Bishnoi, Jaggu Bhagwanpuria, and Ravinder Dhanda. Indian agencies have simultaneously pursued gang members and associates operating overseas.
Anmol Bishnoi, Lawrence Bishnoi’s brother, was deported from the US to India in November 2025 and arrested by the National Investigation Agency.
The Haryana Police also arrested Mamta Rani after her extradition from Russia in a case linked to a Lawrence Bishnoi associate.
The Punjab Police have continued arrests of suspected gang operatives within the state. In July, Spain arrested alleged Bishnoi associate Goldy Dhillon following inputs from the Punjab Police, the NIA and Interpol. Haryana gangster Venkat Garg was also extradited from Georgia and brought back to India to face murder and extortion cases.
–IANS
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