The mayor of Brampton, Patrick Brown, joins a call for the Federal Government to declare a terrorist organization of Lawrence Bishnoi, saying that the gang based in India has been linked to crime and violence in the Peel region.
Brown said Peel police suspect that the notorious gang has been involved in extortion cases and shootings directed in the region.
“They terrorize communities, terrorize people and, and they know, they are a predatory organization,” Brown said in an interview with CBC Radio’s Metro tomorrow Host David Common on Thursday.
“They are a transnational crime that runs out of a different country, it is a threat with which we have not had to deal in a long time.”
Earlier this week, BC Prime Minister David Eby asked the Federal Government to list the gang as a terrorist group about concerns that the group has been involved in extortion and other crimes against the community of southern Asia.
Eby said Tuesday that he would write to Prime Minister Mark Carney to ask him to receive the terrorist designation “to allow the police to use the necessary tools to investigate.”
Brown said he believes that the appointment would help peel the police to investigate similar crimes in the region.
Attempts to repair the Canada-India relationship
The calls arrive the same week that Canada and India agreed to restore their senior commissioners and analyze the renewed visa services for citizens and companies of others.
Carney announced the move after a bilateral meeting with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the G7 summit in Alberta.
The two countries expelled the high commissioners of others, the upper diplomats that are similar to ambassadors, the past fall after the RCMP accused the Indian government of playing a role in a network of violence in Canada, including homicides and extortion.
The RCMP also said that the Bishnoi Gang was attacked to members of the Pro-Khalistan movement in Canadian soil, supposedly at the request of the Indian government.
Labeling the Indian gang, a terrorist group could complicate Carney’s attempts to rebuild the Canada-Indian relationship, given those previous accusations, said Sanjay Ruparelia, president of Democracy of Jarislowsky, of the Metropolitan University of Toronto and an expert in Indian politics.
“It is complicated because the claim of last year in October was that they were used as a proxy of these operations in Canada. That is the accusation,” he said.
“Now … we have had what seems to the beginning of a restart, of an advance.”
The calls are increasing for Canada to label the Bishnoi gang of India, a terrorist group. But an associate professor at the Metropolitan University of Toronto says that this would be complicated given the state of the diplomatic relations of India and Canada.
Public Security Minister Gary Anandasangaree said Wednesday that he was aware of EBY’s comments but has not received an official application.
“This is an independent process that goes through our public security agencies and, according to its recommendation, I will be able to bring that decision to the cabinet,” he told reporters in Parliament Hill.
