Delhi Police verifying online clip of Lawrence Bishnoi's threat call to trader

Delhi Police are verifying a purported mobile phone clip of a video call made by jailed gangster Lawrence Bishnoi to a city-based businessman demanding protection money that surfaced on social media on Monday, sources said.

According to a police source, the video call was made in May last year when the businessman, who owns restaurants and a travel company, was on a trip to Dubai with his family.

The businessman had lodged a complaint against Bishnoi with the Delhi Police's Special Cell.

In the three-minute video, Bishnoi is heard asking the businessman "chamatkar dekhna hai?" (do you want to see a miracle?). Responding to him, the businessman says, "I don’t want to see any miracle."

The video is being verified, police said.

In the FIR lodged in the case, the businessman stated that on May 22, 2023, he received the first call from a person who identified himself as Lawrence Bishnoi.

When he asked the caller if he was really Bishnoi, the gangster cut the call and made a video call to the complainant. Bishnoi threatened the businessman and demanded Rs 2.5 crore from him as protection money, the FIR stated.

The businessman returned to India on May 30 and kept getting calls from Bishnoi and his gang member Goldy Brar, who is said to be based in the US, it said.

Recently, Bishnoi's name surfaced along with another jailed gangster Hashim Baba in connection with the September 12 murder of a 35-year-old gym owner, Nadir Shah, in south Delhi's Greater Kailash area.

Sources said that police suspect that Shah was murdered as he was trying to intervene in the matter related to the businessman.