Deportation order issued to shooter convicted in Bishnoi gang attack at home of AP Dhillon

A member of Canada’s Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB) has issued a deportation order to an Indian national convicted of carrying out a fiery attack at the Victoria-area home of Punjabi musician AP Dhillon at the behest of the Bishnoi gang.

IRB member Azeem Lalji told Abjeet Singh Kingra Monday that his well-publicized role in firing 14 rounds from a handgun into Dhillon’s house and lighting his vehicles on fire helped the Bishnoi gang gain a terrifying foothold in communities from Ontario to British Columbia.

“And while those acts were not part of an extortion, they fit within the pattern of violence that is being committed by the Bishnoi gang against members of the Indian diaspora in Canada,” Lalji told Kingra.

“It was a high-profile sequence of offences that was filmed and uploaded to the internet, which likely contributed to the Bishnoi gang’s violent reputation and to its ability to intimidate its victims.”

Ongoing campaign of intimidation

The deportation order will likely not be enforced immediately because Kingra is still serving the six-year sentence he received after pleading guilty last fall to arson and firearms charges in relation to the September 2024 attack.

Kingra, who claims the Bishnoi gang has threatened to kill him if he returns to India, told Lalji he intends to appeal the deportation order to Federal Court.

The 26-year-old has insisted he was told Dhillon’s house would be empty and that he did not know he was working for the Bishnoi gang when he filmed himself firing a gun into the musician’s home.

But Lalji said the law requires him to accept as fact the reasons delivered by the provincial court judge who sentenced Kingra — which said the attack was carried out as part of the Bishnoi gang’s ongoing campaign of intimidation against Dhillon.

The federal government listed the Bishnoi gang as a terrorist entity last year, claiming that “specific communities have been targeted for terror, violence and intimidation.”

Named after imprisoned founder Lawrence Bishnoi, the gang emerged from Punjab in northwest India into a multimillion-dollar global criminal enterprise rooted in drug smuggling and extortion.

According to evidence presented at Kingra’s sentencing, Dhillon fell into the gang’s crosshairs by producing a music video featuring Salman Khan, a Bollywood star targeted for hunting a type of antelope revered by the Bishnoi community.

Claims of death threats

Kingra came to Canada in 2018 on a study permit.

He told the admissibility hearing he did construction, security and delivery work in Surrey until he moved to Winnipeg, where he met Vikram Sharma, a co-accused who is believed to have since fled Canada.

Kingra said he met Sharma through a friend while he was working at a moving company.

He claimed Sharma offered him $4,000 to join him for the attack, but said he was told Dhillon’s house would be empty.

According to court records, although Dhillon was not home, the musician’s roommate narrowly missed injury or death as Sharma lit two vehicles on fire in the driveway and Kingra fired 14 shots at the house — all in view of a security camera.

Kingra said Sharma paid him in cash after the attack.

Kingra is serving his time at Mission Institution.

At his admissibility hearing, he claimed the Bishnoi gang has threatened his family in India because they believe he is working with the police. But he offered no evidence about those alleged threats.

Both Kingra and Sharma are also facing charges in connection with a separate arson and shooting that occurred prior to the Vancouver Island case, at the home of a Surrey resident who had been subject to extortion threats.