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“We mafia are like water … if you mix the sweetness of friendship, then we’ll become the holy water … and if you mix the poison of enmity, then it will kill you.” — Quote from 1996 Bollywood blockbuster Mafia.
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Six bullets obliterated the chest of Mumbai politician Baba Siddique, sending him to the morgue.
The targeted hit on Oct. 12 stoked fears of renewed bloodshed on the streets of India’s most populous city. That murder has tentacles stretching across the Pacific Ocean to Canada.
The common denominator is one of the subcontinent’s most notorious alleged gangsters: Lawrence Bishnoi. A Facebook post from a person claiming to be a member of his crime syndicate, the so-called Bishnoi gang, took credit for the hit, although police have not confirmed the authenticity of the post, according to the BBC.
It was the imprisoned Bishnoi’s alleged underlings who allegedly whacked Punjabi rapper Sidhu Moose Wala and have been fingered for acting as proxies for the Indian government’s campaign to ice Khalistani separatists in this country.
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The explosive international brouhaha has shone a light on India’s underworld with its toxic blend of politics, religion, terrorism and violence.
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From the docks of Lower Manhattan to Mumbai, organized crime has traditionally festered in teeming port cities. Driven by poverty, desperation and opportunity, the docks were a bountiful recruiting fair for young criminals.
Whoever controlled the docks controlled the unions, the drugs flooding in and other contraband of all kinds. Ethnic enclaves also played a role in allowing organized crime to thrive.
Mumbai, with more than 12 million people, remains the richest prize for the subcontinent’s mobsters. For decades, it was run by Haji Mastan, Varadarajan Mudaliar, and Karim Lala.
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Mastan was a Tamil Muslim mobster who started on the docks in 1944. He was the then-British colony’s first celebrity mobster. Mastan made millions from smuggling gold, silver and electronic goods before muscling in on Bollywood.
From 1960 to 1980, Mudaliar, a Tamil Hindu, began his criminal career smuggling booze heisted off the docks. In the city’s Tamil communities, he ran a parallel justice system, lording over life and death.
Lala’s syndicate was called the Afghan Mafia because most of its members were ethnic Pashtuns from Afghanistan’s Kunar province. His specialty was drug trafficking, extortion, protection, gambling and contract killings.
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The old guard’s driving obsession was money and power, but their world was rapidly changing. The shuttering of Mumbai’s textile mills in the late 1970s created a new coterie of criminals.
Enter Dawood Ibrahim — public enemy No. 1 in India. From the late 1970s, Ibrahim is alleged to have ruled Mumbai using terror and extortion, leaving hundreds dead in the streets as his strength grew to 5,000 “soldiers.”
But Ibrahim was said to be a gangster with a twist: He is alleged to have married Islamic terrorism to his rackets.
On March 12, 1993, at least 13 bomb blasts shattered Mumbai, leaving more than 250 dead and injuring 1,500 others. The United States designated Ibrahim — now believed to hiding out in Karachi, Pakistan, under the protection of the notorious Pakistani secret service — a terrorist.
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And no wonder. He reportedly worked with the now-obliterated terror master Osama bin Laden in securing his drug routes through Afghanistan and working to destabilize India.
Horror struck again on Nov. 26, 2008, in Mumbai when 10 members of Islamic terrorist organization Lashkar-e-Taiba unleashed a four-day shooting and bombing spree across the city. Ibrahim is believed to have been the quarterback with blessings from Pakistan.
Estimates are that 175 people died in the attacks.
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Lawrence Bishnoi was unknown to most Canadians until the last few months. Bishnoi did the opposite of Ibrahim: Politics came first, then allegedly crime.
At just 31, Bishnoi and his university comrade Goldy Brar allegedly saw a vacuum in the Mumbai underworld and jumped. In addition to allegedly being involved in the usual rackets, he moved into arms trafficking.
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Caged on a murder beef since 2014, Bishnoi allegedly remains firmly in command of his syndicate — and remains steeped in Punjabi politics.
On May 29, 2022, popular Punjabi singer Wala was assassinated. Brar allegedly claimed responsibility for orchestrating the murder in co-ordination with Bishnoi’s gang.
Bishnoi is alleged to have squirmed his way onto the Canadian criminal landscape where his alleged hitters are said to be acting as proxies for the Narendra Modi government.
In early October, the RCMP charged that Bishnoi and other Indian gangsters were targeting pro-Khalistan activists in Canada. Foremost among them was Hardeep Singh Nijjar.
Nijjar, 45, was taken off the board on June 18, 2023, in the parking lot of a Sikh temple in Surrey, B.C. In May, the Mounties arrested three Indian nationals — here on student visas — and charged them with Nijjar’s slaying.
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Canada and India are now involved in a war of words that has seen both countries expel diplomats. The diplomatic battle has no end in sight.
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Back in Mumbai, cops and the public are bracing for more violence. Bishnoi has denied any wrongdoing.
Still, Siddique remains quite dead.
“This horrifying incident exposes the complete collapse of law and order in Maharashtra,” said Rahul Gandhi, a leader in the opposition Congress party.
Detectives in Mumbai have arrested several of the suspected killers. Those arrested told cops that they had a list of other targets for death.
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For years, Bishnoi’s alleged criminal activity has sent chills down the spines of the Indian diaspora, B.C. politician Kash Heed told Global News.
“He is an individual that is prone to violence in India. A couple of years ago, the Bishnoi gang really started to hit the airwaves and people (were) concerned about it … a lot of the diaspora know about Lawrence Bishnoi and his activities (in India).”
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