Indian gangster and criminal syndicate leader Lawrence Bishnoi has kept Bollywood—India’s largest film industry—on edge for the past several years. The Bishnoi gang frequently dominates news headlines by hurling death threats at Mumbai-based superstar and “Bhaijaan” Salman Khan. The gang’s notoriety was further underscored recently following a shooting incident targeting Bollywood actor Tiger Shroff.
The burning question remains: Who is Lawrence Bishnoi, what is the story behind his ascent as a gangland kingpin, how did his relentless rivalry with Salman Khan begin, and why does it continuously make front-page news?
Lawrence Bishnoi’s criminal trajectory began when pressure from Punjab Police forced him to flee his home state, initially driving him to Rajasthan’s capital, Jaipur.
Educated at a convent school before graduating from DAV College in Chandigarh, Bishnoi entered student politics. In 2008, he was arrested for the first time for assaulting a rival candidate during Punjab University student union elections. His early criminal footprint remained confined to campus violence and college gang rivalries in Punjab, with his second murder in 2014 also stemming from student politics.
Facing multiple murder and violence charges in Punjab, Bishnoi fled to Jaipur in early 2014 to evade police surveillance, staying there for three to four months with financial backing from a friend, Ravindra Punia. Through Punia, Bishnoi met Amandeep alias Sonu, a local liquor shop owner. Amandeep became a pivotal figure in Bishnoi’s life, pulling him out of campus politics and introducing him to the worlds of arms trafficking and the illicit liquor trade.
After Amandeep was killed by rival Rajasthan liquor mafia figures in 2014, Bishnoi vowed revenge and expanded his gang into Rajasthan. Police records indicate that between 2014 and 2015, Bishnoi and his associates carried out multiple retaliatory killings, forging alliances with various local criminals across Rajasthan.
For the Bishnoi community of Rajasthan, the blackbuck is an animal of immense religious sanctity. Between September 26 and October 2, 1998, Salman Khan was accused of poaching blackbucks near Jodhpur. At the time of the alleged incident, Lawrence Bishnoi was only five years old, living in a village in Punjab’s Fazilka district.
By 2017, Bishnoi had emerged as a prominent inter-state gangster. Following an extortion attempt targeting a prominent Jodhpur physician, Jodhpur Police arrested Bishnoi in August 2017 and lodged him in Jodhpur Central Jail. There, he was housed in the same cell block as Bishnoi community members imprisoned in smuggling and poaching-related cases. Police officials believe conversations inside the prison indoctrinated him into adopting the “defense” of Bishnoi community honor as a mantle for his syndicate.
Bishnoi was subsequently transferred to high-security facilities over mobile phone use in prison, but was brought back to Jodhpur in connection with the planned murder of local businessman Vasudev Irani. By pure coincidence, his court production date fell on January 4, 2018—the exact same day Salman Khan appeared at the Jodhpur court complex for final hearings in the blackbuck poaching case.
While exiting the court, Bishnoi caught sight of Salman Khan and publicly threatened to assassinate him, shouting to reporters that the actor had escaped punishment for poaching the sacred blackbuck, deeply grieving the Bishnoi community.
From operating locally in Punjab until 2013–2014, Lawrence Bishnoi’s syndicate has since expanded into an international criminal enterprise with active cells spanning India, North America (the US and Canada), and beyond.
Over the past decade, Bishnoi has repeatedly threatened Khan. In 2024, the Bishnoi gang assassinated NCP leader Baba Siddique in Mumbai, reportedly motivated by Siddique’s close association with Salman Khan and the syndicate’s drive to establish dominance in Mumbai.
Continuing the campaign of intimidation, the gang struck again on February 1, 2026, when gunshots were fired in the early morning hours outside the Juhu residence of Bollywood filmmaker Rohit Shetty, an incident linked by investigators to Amol Bishnoi, Lawrence Bishnoi’s brother.
Lawrence Bishnoi is currently incarcerated in Sabarmati Jail in Gujarat, from where he has continued to face investigations regarding cross-border drug trafficking networks operating from the Gujarat coastline. Meanwhile, Mumbai law enforcement maintains heightened round-the-clock security around Salman Khan’s Bandra residence following repeated arms seizures and intercepted plots linked to Bishnoi’s associates.
