Anmol Bishnoi, the younger brother of jailed gangster Lawrence Bishnoi, was arrested by the National Investigation Agency on Wednesday after he was brought to India following his deportation from the United States.
He was arrested by the authorities in the US in November 2024 and was deported a day after his asylum application was rejected by a Louisiana court, The Indian Express reported.
Anmol Bishnoi landed in New Delhi on Wednesday morning and was taken to the Patiala House court, Hindustan Times reported.
India began the process to extradite Anmol Bishnoi in November 2024 after authorities in the US issued an alert about his presence in their country.
In March, the US Department of State had sought information about cases in which he was directly involved, along with technical evidence against him and financial details, The Indian Express reported.
On Wednesday, the National Investigation Agency said that Anmol Bishnoi was the 19th person to be arrested for “involvement in the terror syndicate” led by Lawrence Bishnoi, who is being held at Sabarmati Central Jail in Gujarat’s Ahmedabad.
Lawrence Bishnoi has been linked to several crimes, including the Canadian government’s allegations that agents of the Indian government were working with his gang to plan and execute violence in North America.
Anmol Bishnoi, who has been on the run since 2022, was believed to have been living in Canada, from where he frequently travelled to the US. The authorities have alleged that with Lawrence Bishnoi in jail, Anmol Bishnoi planned several criminal activities.
The National Investigation Agency on Wednesday claimed that Anmol Bishnoi “continued to run terror syndicates and execute terrorist acts from the US”. The agency claimed that he provided shelter and helped with logistics for the gang’s ground operations.
Anmol Bishnoi has several cases pending against him in India. He is wanted for the murder of former Maharashtra minister Baba Siddique in October 2024 and for the shooting incident outside Bollywood actor Salman Khan’s Mumbai home in April 2024.
Siddique was shot dead allegedly by three men in Mumbai’s Bandra East area on the evening of October 12, 2024. Shubham Lonkar, an alleged member of Lawrence Bishnoi’s group, had in a social media post claimedresponsibility for the killing.
Lonkar said that Siddique was killed because of his close relationship with Khan and alleged connections to members of the underworld, including fugitive gangster Dawood Ibrahim.
A lookout circular had been earlier issued for Anmol Bishnoi after he claimed responsibility for the shooting outside Khan’s residence.
In August 2022, the National Investigation Agency had filed a first information report against nine persons, including the Bishnoi brothers, for conspiring to “raise funds, recruit youth to carry out terrorist acts in the Union Territory of Delhi and other parts of the country”, in addition to the “targeted killings of prominent persons”.
In March 2023, it filed a chargesheet against Anmol Bishnoi after it was established that he had “actively aided designated individual terrorist Goldy Brar and Lawrence Bishnoi in the commission of various acts of terrorism in the country” between 2020 and 2023.
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