New Delhi:
Today, however, his alleged criminal network figures prominently in international investigations, with American prosecutors alleging that the criminal enterprise associated with him, which he continues to operate from prison, functions across multiple countries and is capable of executing violent operations beyond India’s borders.
The development has brought Bishnoi’s alleged network under a far wider international lens, extending scrutiny beyond organised crime to questions of intelligence and national security.
Interviews with multiple serving and former Indian law enforcement officers who have interrogated Bishnoi over the years offer a rare glimpse into the persona he projected while in custody, and help explain why investigators have long considered him more than just another gang leader.
The officers, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorised to discuss interrogation details publicly, described Bishnoi as soft-spoken, articulate and cooperative during questioning. Rather than displaying aggression, they said, he often engaged investigators in lengthy conversations and repeatedly projected himself as someone motivated by nationalism and India’s national interest.
According to the officers, Bishnoi claimed that he wished to counter “anti-India forces” and said that, given the opportunity and his alleged reach, he would advise leaders of terrorist organisations and other anti-India groups against targeting innocent civilians in India.
The officers emphasised that these were Bishnoi’s own assertions during interrogation and were neither independently verified nor accepted at face value.
Officials also recalled him as disciplined and deeply religious, saying these traits formed part of the persona he consistently projected. They stressed that these observations should not be interpreted as validating his claims or conduct.
For investigators, however, Bishnoi’s significance has never rested on the image he projected. It has rested on the organisation that investigators allege operates around him.
According to current and former officials, the criminal network associated with Bishnoi extends across several Indian states and multiple foreign jurisdictions through a decentralised structure of trusted associates.
Investigators allege that the organisation has remained operational despite his prolonged incarceration, with different operatives allegedly handling extortion, criminal intimidation, targeted shootings, contract killings and other organised criminal activities.
Officials say this organisational capability explains why Bishnoi has remained a high-priority subject for Indian law enforcement agencies and why foreign agencies have also increasingly taken interest in his network. The challenge, investigators say, is not confined to one individual but to dismantling a distributed criminal enterprise capable of functioning across jurisdictions.
That assessment has acquired fresh relevance following the U.S. Department of Justice indictment accusing Bishnoi of leading a transnational criminal enterprise allegedly involved in murders, attempted murders, extortion, narcotics trafficking and witness intimidation across several countries.
The indictment alleges that the organisation functioned through regional lieutenants and associates while Bishnoi continued to exercise influence despite being incarcerated. These allegations remain untested in court.
Significantly, the U.S. indictment also alleges that Bishnoi publicly cultivated the image of a patriot, nationalist and deeply religious individual while simultaneously leading a far-reaching criminal enterprise.
Officers who interrogated him say that description broadly mirrors the image he sought to project before Indian investigators, although they caution against drawing conclusions about the sincerity of those claims.
Security officials say the broader implications of the case extend beyond organised crime.
Throughout modern intelligence history, states have, at various times, been accused of relying on proxies, intermediaries, criminal networks and other non-state actors to pursue strategic objectives while maintaining varying degrees of deniability. Such allegations have surfaced over decades in relation to several countries, including the United States, and are not unique to any one state.
Security officials and intelligence historians point out that the alleged use of such non-state intermediaries, if ultimately established in any particular case, would not represent a novel instrument of statecraft. During the Cold War and in subsequent decades, intelligence services of several major powers, including the United States and other Western countries, have been accused of, or have acknowledged in declassified records, relying on proxies, militias, criminal networks, private operatives and other non-state actors to pursue strategic objectives while preserving varying degrees of deniability.
Against that historical backdrop, what makes the present controversy significant is not the alleged use of a proxy itself. Rather, if the allegations in the U.S. proceedings that the Bishnoi network carried out the killing of Khalistani terrorist Hardeep Singh Nijjar were ultimately established, it would mark one of the first instances in which India has been accused of employing a comparable instrument of statecraft in pursuit of a national security objective. India has categorically rejected those allegations, and they remain unproven.
The present U.S. indictment should therefore be viewed within that wider context. It represents allegations by American prosecutors regarding the activities of an alleged transnational criminal enterprise whose leader is in Indian custody, and their claim that the killing of Nijjar was carried out by a “nationalist and patriotic” Bishnoi.
