Bishnoi gang member testifies he was paid $4,000 for B.C. shooting

A convicted member of the Lawrence Bishnoi gang testified at his deportation hearing Thursday that he was paid $4,000 to open fire on a house on Vancouver Island.

Abjeet Kingra told the Immigration and Refugee Board a co-worker at a Winnipeg moving company recruited him to shoot the British Columbia home of Punjabi singer A.P. Dhillon. "He told me that no one should be at home, and you just need to fire outside the house, and you will get money," Kingra, an Indian citizen, testified.

The Canada Border Services Agency has asked the Refugee Board to order Kingra's deportation on grounds he is a member of a criminal organization. He is one of the first alleged Bishnoi members to face a public deportation hearing amid a crackdown on extortion crimes targeting South Asian Canadians.

Kingra came to Canada on a student visa in 2018 and worked various jobs in British Columbia and Manitoba. When a friend, Vikram Sharma, asked him to carry out the shooting, Kingra initially declined but later agreed, saying he needed money to help his family in India because his job wasn't going well. The two drove from Winnipeg to Vancouver Island, scouted Dhillon's house, then returned in the evening. After Sharma torched vehicles in the driveway with gasoline, Kingra fired 14 bullets at the home and recorded a video as proof for payment.

Kingra denied knowing the Bishnoi group was behind the shooting until hearing news reports the next day. A judge who sentenced him for a separate August 2024 shooting in Surrey found he had acted "at the behest of a criminal organization known as the Bishnoi gang." Sharma fled Canada after the Dhillon shooting and remains wanted by the RCMP.