The Ruffians. It is the name of a gang in the Abbotsford area of British Columbia, Canada, formed by people of Punjabi origin. Kal Dosanjh, a veteran police officer with the Vancouver Police, says the three-year-old gang is the first of its kind – all its members are international students.
Gangster Goldie Brar, who traveled to Canada on a student visa in 2017, along with claimed responsibility for the murder of a Punjabi rapper Sidhu Musewala In the last month, Indo-Canadian gangs have once again come under the scanner.
The links between criminals in Canada and Punjab first came under global scrutiny in June 2021 when Toronto police busted an international drug racket in Brampton. Most of the 28 people arrested in this case were of Indian origin. The Toronto Sun newspaper called it the largest drug seizure in local police history – $61 million worth of 1,000 kilograms of drugs, 48 firearms, $1 million in cash. “This is the first time we’ve seen anything on this level,” Toronto Police Chief James Ramer told a news conference.
A former DGP of Punjab says that drug smuggling from India to Canada is going on for the last 10-15 years. “It’s a deadly cocktail. Afghanistan, Pakistan, India are part of the international drug route. Initially, smugglers here used well-known courier companies to smuggle drugs. Then they started liquefying them for smuggling.” . Since pharmaceutical controls in the region are relatively loose, they are also shipping predetermined drugs to Canada.”
The kabaddi tournament, a hit among the Punjabi diaspora, was also used as a drug conduit. Canada-based Ranjit Singh Aujla alias Dara Muthada, wanted by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in the multi-crore Jagdish Bhola drug case, died of cardiac arrest in British Columbia on June 9. Ranjit was the former President of the British. Colombia Kabaddi Federation.
On February 10 this year, another co-accused in the case, Sarabjit Singh Sander, was murdered in Langley, Canada. Sander allegedly used to arrange couriers to transport the drugs.
Police officers in Canada have no doubt that drugs are behind the gangs and their internal battles. Manny Mann, chief officer of the Joint Forces Special Enforcement Unit (CFSEU), British Columbia’s anti-gang task force, blames gang wars on fluid, constantly changing alliances and competition on drug lines.
Indo-Canadians continue to be part of the gangs that dominate Vancouver, such as the Wolfpack, Red Scorpions, United Nations and the Brothers Keepers. For example, The Brothers Keepers was founded by Gavinder Singh Grewal, who was murdered in December 2017 at the age of 30; The Red Scorpions have the Bibo-Kang Group (founded by brothers Samit and Gary Kang) as an affiliate; And the Dhak-Duhre alliance (founded by the late Gurmeet Dhak and Sandeep Duhre) is known to have strong links with the United Nations gang.
The website of the British Columbia Governance’s Organized Crime Agency puts the number of such “groups” as they are called, anywhere between 600 and more than 900 over the past five years. However, it does say that “Gangs based on ethnicity are no longer the norm… What we are seeing now are new gang alliances and new power blocks forming to monopolize the illegal market”.
Gang wars often take a toll on Indo-Canadians. Four Indo-Canadians, including a police officer, were killed in targeted killings in the first two weeks of May alone. Later, the CFSEU released photographs of 11 men, whom it said could be targeted and therefore putting the public at risk. Seven of them were Indo-Canadians with their roots in Punjab.
Linda Ennis, executive director of Metro Vancouver Crime Stoppers, said British Columbia saw 123 gang-related shootings in 2021.
In his thesis on South Asian gangs in Canada, one researcher, Manjit Pabla, says that nearly 200 South Asian men have been killed in mass violence over the past three decades “for the contradictory purposes of social exclusion and inclusion”. Many of them had their roots in Punjab.
But police officer Dosanjh, who is also CEO of Kidsplay Foundation, which works to keep youth out of crime, worries Punjab’s international students are increasingly vulnerable.
“Often, financial stress and the need for an additional source of income leads them into the arms of existing gangs and then education takes a back seat.” Dosanjh says. “Numerically, only 3 per cent of them are victims of crime but the trend is disturbing.”
Dosanjh says that the admission of students from India in general and Punjab in particular has been increasing steadily since 2015. Immigration Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) records show that 156,171 study permits were granted to students from India in 2021, almost double the number. 2020 The number of Indian students in Canadian universities is likely to cross the 200,000 mark this year.
If caught committing a crime, students are charged, convicted, punished and deported. “The incarceration rate is very high,” says Kal.
Death due to drug overdose is also increasing among students. A report last year in digital news platform Pointer said that five bodies of Indian students are found every month at a funeral home in the Greater Toronto Area. This has prompted the Indian Mission in Canada to launch a campaign for mapping Indian students in the country.
Unlike Indian students, Indo-Canadian gangsters are not motivated to commit crimes due to financial constraints. “They usually come from decent families, they have the resources to be successful but they like easy money, bling, intimidation, control. On a deeper psychological level, they find acceptance and recognition as part of the mafia,” says Dosanjh.
Pabla calls this the lure of a “gold-collar” (as opposed to white-collar or blue-collar) lifestyle.
Shannon Charania, a reformed gangster, says she was bullied when she was young and was heading to a gang of bullies who could protect her.
Historically speaking, Indo-Canadian gangs first gained notoriety in the 1980s and 1990s, with the birth of the Punjabi mafia led by gangsters such as the Dosanjh brothers, Ron (Ranjeet) and Jimmy (Jimsher). . These brothers allegedly took cocaine from Colombian groups.
The police trace the seeds of the current gang wars to the deadly feud between the Dosanjh brothers and the ruthless Bindi Johal. All three were shot and killed, Jimmy and Ron, two months apart in 1994, reportedly killed four years later by Johl. All three were in their twenties. The 2015 Deepa Mehta film, Biba Boys (Good Boys), is based on Bindi Johal and Indo-Canadian gangs in the West Coast. Even today, Johal, often seen on live TV feeds, remains a folk figure for gangsters who believe that he withstood the semen of South Asian men.
Kal Dosanjh, whose foundation has guided more than 70,000 students, half of whom are of Indian descent, says, “We try to bring home the consequences of joining a gang: You’re either dead Or in prison, often at a very young age.
The former DGP quoted above says that law enforcement agencies in both countries are also tightening the noose by launching extradition proceedings. But whether it will stop the supply of drugs that run these gangs is another question.