The Current - How a criminal gang from India made the Canadian terror list

Episode Date: September 30, 2025

Intimidation, extortion, and murder. After months of calls by political leaders, the Bishnoi Gang has been designated a terrorist organization by the federal government. But they're a group without a clear political ideology.

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Hello, I'm Matt Galloway, and this is the current podcast. After months of pressure from political leaders, a notorious criminal organization based in India, the Bishnoi gang, is now listed as a terrorist entity in Canada. Knowing that they've been involved in significant criminal activity in Peel region, knowing that our police thought it would be helpful,

that's why I was lobbying for this tool. I had met with families that had been victims, communities that have been terrorized, and we want to put it into this. That's the mayor of Branton, Ontario, Patrick Brown, reacting to yesterday's designation. The Bishnoy gang has been linked to high-profile killings in this country, including the 2023 murder of Sikh separatist Hardeeb Singh, Niger. The federal government says the organization uses violence, intimidation, and extortion to generate fear and insecurity within the South Asian diaspora.

Jasgar and Sandu is a lawyer, and on the board of the World Sick Organization, he's in Calgary this morning. Jessica, and good morning. Good morning. What was your reaction when you heard that the federal government was designating the Bishnoi gang as a terrorist entity? I think I shared a reaction that similar to many in the sick community that this is a great step forward and ensuring the safety and security of not just the sick Canadian community

about all of Canada, considering the brazen criminal acts, which now are akin to terrorist acts, that the Bishnoi gang has been doing at the behest of the Indian government across this country. So it was very welcomed. Can you just, for people who don't know the details of this, just briefly, I guess, paint a picture of what this gang is. Yeah, so this gang is based out of India, and it's most well known for, extortions, but it's incredibly violent. I think where you find it in the Canadian context and the Canadian story is truly the RCMP press conference from last year, which highlighted the nature of the Indian government's transnational repression and foreign interference

in this country, especially connected into a string of assassinations that were conducted of Canadians on Canadian soil. And it was during that press conference, we heard for really the first time loud and clear that the RCMP found that the Bishnoi gang was the Indian criminal network that was being used to execute the Indian government's transnational repression program in this country. And then we later learned that one of the officials kind of behind all this is Amit Shah, which is the secondhand, right-hand man of Narendra Moldi. Who, I mentioned the murder of Hardeeb's signature and the fact that that gang has been linked

to that killing in 2023. You spent a lot of time in Brampton, Ontario, and we heard from the mayor of Brampton, Patrick Brown, who has, he's been one of the politicians calling for this gang to be linked as a terrorist entity. What is this meant to people in Brampton? How have folks there in the community been targeting? Well, it's meant quite a bit. I would say for the last, you know, two, three years, when we talk about crime, law, and safety within the sick community, specifically speaking, but even more generally, like the larger South Asian community, we were talking about, really, the string of crimes connected to the Bishnoy gang.

There's been rampant extortions happening across not just Brampton. We've seen examples here in Edmonton, Calgary. We've seen many examples in and around the lower mainlands in British Columbia and even Winnipeg. Wherever there's a sick community in particular, we've been seeing extortions. We've seen homicides. We've seen arsons. We've seen threats. And people have been living in a state of fear.

And a lot of this violence was indiscriminate. It was meant to not just attack political opponents or dissidents of the Indian government. It was meant to destabilize, polarize, and foster discord within the community, but also across Canadian society, generally speaking. And this has been a top-of-mind issue for a lot of these communities, and people have been calling for action for a very long time. and, you know, designating the Bishnoi gang as a terrorist group, you know, gives police the tools that they need.

You know, this request actually came from the police first. The politicians carried it forward to the federal government. We're hopeful that these will give the tools necessary to really clamp down on this gang that has been, quite frankly, running amok for the last few years. I was just, just before I let you go, just finally, I mean, pick up on that. for those people in the community that have been the subject of, as you said, extortion threats, living in a sentence of fear, what is your sense as to what a designation like this is actually going to achieve? I think first and foremost, there's a psychological effect, right?

If folks that are kind of linked to are engaged with this gang, you know, have to think twice, because you're not just a criminal now, you're a terrorist. The second point is we've got to understand what makes Vishnoy gang different from any other criminal gang. that this is an extension of the Indian state. It's a completely different ball game that we're playing here right now. And the Bishnoi gang is its motivation is very different than any other criminal gang. Now, what can it do for police is that it gives it more investigatory powers. It gives it greater abilities to freeze assets and go after individuals.

But it also makes it a crime to aid a bet and support the Bishnoi gang. It makes it difficult for them to go recruit. more members and shooters, again, to cause havoc in our communities. And so there's a lot of tools here that are available, real and intangible and also psychological and emotional, that make it easier to fight this menace in Canada. Jasgarin, good to speak with you. Thank you very much. Thank you for having me. Jessica and Suntu, is a lawyer and on the board of the World Sick Organization. He was in Calgary.

The spirit of innovation is deeply ingrained in Canada. Canada. And Google is helping Canadians innovate in ways both big and small. From mapping accessible spaces so the disabled community can explore with confidence to unlocking billions in domestic tourism revenue, thousands of Canadian companies are innovating with Google AI. Innovation is Canada's story. Let's tell it together. Find out more at g.co slash Canadian innovation. Okay, here's a few movies, guess who is the common thread between them? Lost in Translation, Ghost World, The Prestige, and like a million Marvel movies. I'm talking about Scarlett Johansson, the highest grossing actor of all time. Scarlett's directorial debut, Eleanor the Great, came to this year's

Toronto International Film Festival, and I talked to her all about loneliness, forgiveness, and compassion, all themes in her new film. Find our chat on Q With Tom Power, wherever you get your podcasts, including on YouTube. Wesley Warwick is a national security and intelligence expert, senior fellow at the Center for International Governance Innovation. Wesley, good morning to you. Good morning, Matt. Why do you think the federal government designated this gang a terrorist entity now? I think the clear answer to that, Matt, is that they faced considerable political pressure, as you've heard from the mayor of Brampton, from the premiers of Alberta and British Columbia, indeed from the Sikh community itself. And it represents, I think, a bit of a win for the Karni government. It's the easy thing to do, you know, to show their determination to kind of battle this organized crime group and to send a message, the psychological message your

previous guest mentioned, to members of the Indian diaspora, particularly the sick community that has been targeted and is very fearful about the activities of proxy groups like the Bishnoi gang. Are you concerned? I mean, this is not meant to diminish the sense of fear that Jasgarin was talking about that runs through that community. But are you concerned about that at all? The political pressure would lead to such a designation? Well, you know, Matt, I think it's absolutely true that the terrorist entity list has been expanded

and distorted in its original intention. It goes back to 2001 in the passage of our first anti-terrorism legislation. And for many, many years, groups that were placed on the entity list through a fairly complex governmental process were really groups involved in global, terrorism, think of al-Qaeda, think of the Islamic State or Daesh and so on.

And it's only recently that we've sort of changed the nature of the terrorist entity list to include drug cartels earlier this year to include some far-right neo-Nazi groups. And there is, I think, a bit of a distortion of the original intention. And the challenge here, I think, is really twofold. One is that I think it's important for governments and those who are advocates. of this move not to oversell its provisions. Being on the terrorist entity list is essentially giving the government a financial tool to go after the resources of a listed entity. It doesn't mean that anyone who is identified as a member of the Bishnoi gang is automatically a criminal.

It's really a financial tool. And I think it is, to be honest, it has limited traction in that respect. It's primarily, I think, psychological. It's a bit of a deterrent. It's a show of support for those who've been targeted by transnational repression, but it's really never been used as a principal tool to stop terrorist activities. And the problem with, you know, listing criminal gangs is that they don't really fit neatly into our definition of terrorism under the law in Canada. Well, and that was the question I was going to ask. Does it meet that definition? The second part of the definition is that, you know, these organizations have to be, you know, committed to intimidating the public or a segment of the public.

But the first part of it is that they need to be committed in whole or in part for a political, religious, or ideological purpose, objective, or cause. So does a gang or does a drug cartel meet that threshold, do you think? Well, no, I think not really. And the threshold would only come into place, you know, through a criminal prosecution process. And it would clearly be, I think, challenged in court. We haven't seen any kind of challenged that sort. again, which reflects the fact that this is not a tool that's really used ultimately for prosecutorial purposes.

The other point here is, and where the definition maybe aligns a little more closely, is when you have an organized crime group that's being used as a proxy by a foreign government to engage in transnational repression, then I think you can more easily, you know, fit that organized crime group into that definition. But it's still, I think we have to be honest, it's still a bit of a stretch. And I think it is really important for the government and advocates not to oversell its provisions. It's not a panacea. It's not a magic bullet to deal with transnational repression.

At the most, it is a bit of a deterrent, and that's it. I just wonder, just finally, just in the last minute or so that we have to that point, what it's going to mean to those people that Jascahman was talking about in the communities, in the diaspora, who feel threatened by these actors. Well, you know, I think what really matters to those people is to see the RCMP taking, you know, very strong measures to, you know, identify members of these gangs who are involved in potential terrorist activity and bring them to justice, to lay charges. That's the thing that I think anyone in Canada would want to see. And behind that, and, you know, a bit more behind the curtain secrecy, we also need the Canadian Security Intelligence Service to really, have the capacity to follow groups like this that might be engaged in terrorist activity.

So it's a combination of the intelligence work and the law enforcement that really matters. And we have seen the RCMP step up in terms of laying charges and talking about additional charges to come, providing warnings to threaten members of the sick community in particular. So they are active on the ground. But the ultimate test of any effort to stop terrorist activity or gang activity is actually prosecution. laying charges. It's good to speak with you as always. Wesley, thank you. Thank you. Wesley work is a senior fellow at the Center for International Governance Innovation. You've been listening to the current podcast. My name is Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening.

I'll talk to you soon. For more CBC podcasts, go to cbc.ca.ca slash podcasts.