Ottawa/New Delhi, Oct 20 (Reporter) Members of the Bishnoi gang and its leader Lawrence Bishnoi have been sending shivers down the spines of members of the South Asian diaspora in Canada for years, a Canadian city councillor in Richmond, British Columbia, has claimed. Kash Heed said the Bishnoi gang gained notoriety and instilled fear among Indian Canadians well before the Royal Canadian Mounted Police accused the syndicate this week of orchestrating violent crimes on Canadian soil, the Canadian TV News said. “(Lawrence Bishnoi’s) reputation precedes him,” said Heed, also a former B.C. solicitor general and a West Vancouver police chief, in an interview. “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).” On Monday, India and Canada expelled six of their diplomats in a tit-for-tat move over investigations into the killing of Indo-Canadian Khalistani activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar in BC a year ago. The RCMP has alleged it had credible evidence that Indian agents played a role in crimes, including the killings of Canadian citizens and extortion. India has denied the allegations. “What we’ve seen, from an RCMP perspective, is the use of organized crime elements and it’s been publicly attributed and claimed by one organized crime group in particular, which is the Bishnoi group,” said RCMP Assistant Commissioner Brigitte Gauvin in a news conference Monday. “And we believe that group is connected to agents of the government of India.” India has insisted it hasn’t been given any shred of evidence to back the allegations of the Canadian government. Heed said he can’t speculate about how the gang and diplomats might be involved in crimes, including the killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, leader of the Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara in Surrey, B.C. But he said violent extortion cases connected to Bishnoi have been well documented by Canadian and Indian investigators in recent years. In December 2023, police in Abbotsford, B.C., said they were investigating extortions involving affluent members of the South Asian community. They said suspects were believed to have ties to the Bishnoi. Early this year, police in Ontario and Alberta said they were investigating similar extortion schemes, including some that saw bullets fired at businesses. Heed said he knows one B.C. businessman who lost $3 million because of threats from people who claimed to be members of the Bishnoi. Bishnoi has been in jail in India since 2015, said is accused of orchestrating violent extortions while behind bars with a cellphone. In 2022, Bishnoi was accused of being behind the violent shooting of Punjabi rapper Sidhu Moose Wala, who briefly lived in Canada...////...