Convicted gang member Lawrence Bishnoi testified during his deportation hearing Thursday that he was paid $4,000 to open fire on a Vancouver Island home.
Abjeet Kingra told the Immigration and Refugee Board that a co-worker at a Winnipeg moving company hired him to shoot the BC home of Punjabi singer AP Dhillon.
“He told me there should be no one at home, you just need to shoot outside the house, and you will get money,” said Kingra, who is a citizen of India, testifying at his trial.
When asked why his colleague, who is also a citizen of India, gave him this contract, Kingra replied, “I don’t know, maybe I’m an idiot that’s why.”
The Canada Border Services Agency has asked the refugee board to order Kingra’s deportation because he is a member of the Bishnoi gang.
He is one of the first alleged members of the Bishnoi to face a charge of social deportation during a crackdown on crimes against South Asian Canadians.
The case is part of Canada’s response to a robbery epidemic that has spread terror in cities with large South Asian populations, particularly in BC, Alberta, Winnipeg and Ontario.
Testifying over the phone from a prison in Mission, BC, Kingra offered insight into the operation of gangs.
As a witness, Kingra displayed remarkable forgetfulness, answering numerous questions posed by the CBSA with, “I don’t remember.”
But like many gang members, he came to Canada from India on a student visa in 2018 and worked various jobs in BC and Manitoba.
He said that when his friend, Vikram Sharma, asked him to do this incident, he did not agree at first, but after thinking about the matter for a few days, he decided to do it.
He said he was doing it for money. “Because I thought I would be able to help my family back home in India because my work was not going well here.”
They both drove from Winnipeg to Vancouver Island. They first checked Dhillon’s house and returned in the evening.
After Sharma used petrol to set cars on fire on the road, Kingra fired 14 rounds at the home. Kingra used a phone to record a video of the shooting.
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He said Sharma told him to make this video because “only with evidence you can get money.” He said he did not know how the video reached the gang in Bishnoi, who posted it on the internet when they were responding to the incident.
He also denied that he knew that the Bishnoi group was responsible for the incident until he heard the news the next day and saw the video he recorded.
“I was even surprised that it was all over the news channels this morning,” he said. “I made the video because of him [Sharma] he said, ‘I will light a fire and my hands will not be free.’
He also denied knowing who asked Sharma to commit the incident, where he got his gun, how long it took them to drive across Canada and where they live.
Sharma fled to Canada following the incident and is wanted by the RCMP. Kingra is serving a six-year sentence and awaits trial in August 2024 in Surrey, BC.
As the police stepped up their fight against gangs, they encountered hundreds of suspects who should not be in Canada.
The cases have been referred to the CBSA, which said that since May 7, it has opened 446 cases and issued 118 orders.
55 suspects have been deported from Canada, the CBSA said. A number of serious cases have been referred for deportation hearings, including Kingra.
The gang is led by Lawrence Bishnoi, a crime boss who has been able to run his organization despite being imprisoned in India since 2015.
Together with his lieutenant in Canada, Goldy Brar, Bishnoi persuaded young Indians to take money, often from business owners and Canadian Sikhs.
To emphasize the seriousness of their threats, Bishnoi members often drive to their victims’ houses at night, shoot them and burn their buildings.
As Global News first reported, the Bishnoi gang sent a letter to the BC police station last August saying they had 1,000 foot soldiers ready to shoot.
Adding to the problem, the Indian government has used the Bishnoi gang to advance its interests in Canada through violence, the RCMP said.
As part of its fight against Canadian Sikhs who support independence for India’s Punjab, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government is said to have hired Bishnoi.
At the behest of India, the gang arranged for local members to kill Hardeep Singh Nijjar, president of a Sikh temple in Surrey, BC, on June 18, 2023.
Nijjar was the leader of the Khalistan movement, a thorn in India for advocating for the independence of Punjab.
The second assassination planned by the intelligence service of the Indian prime minister was foiled by the United States. The target was also Canadian.
Despite the RCMP taking the unusual step of warning the public about India’s role in the violence, Prime Minister Mark Carney has once again joined Modi.
In response to U.S. President Donald Trump’s trade war, Carney has called for expanded trade with India, as has Canada’s other major enemy of foreign interference, China.
India’s actions are part of a trend in which foreign countries employ organized crime groups to assassinate political figures in the West.
Canadian Sikh groups are concerned that Carney is ignoring their security concerns as he looks to Asia for new export markets amid hostility from the White House.
On Wednesday, Carney congratulated Modi on X becoming India’s longest-serving prime minister, and spoke of renewed Canada-India cooperation.
On May 1, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service reported that India remains one of the “biggest contributors to foreign interference and espionage in Canada.”
Stewart.Bell@globalnews.ca
