Lawrence Bishnoi Doesn't Want Cops To Call Him "Gangster", Goes To Court

Gangster Lawrence Bishnoi filed an application before a special court seeking its direction to the investigation agency to refrain from the use of words like "terrorist" and "gangster" for him in police and court papers without "cogent or convincing" evidence.

Bishnoi is currently behind in jail in Ahmedabad in a drug smuggling case being investigated by the National Investigation Agency (NIA).

The court of Special Judge KM Sojitra sought the NIA's reply in the matter and kept it for hearing on September 22.

On Monday, the court sent Bishnoi to judicial custody after his police remand in the 2022 seizure of drugs from a boat off the Gujarat coast ended.

Bishnoi is an accused in the murder of singer-politician Sidhu Moosewala.

"My most precious rights as a citizen of Bharat should not be snatched away by any person. Kindly pass the necessary order related to the above-stated prayer," he said in a plea filed by his lawyer Anand Brahmbhatt.

The Gujarat Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS), in April, took Bishnoi's custody from Punjab in connection with a case related to the seizure of 39 kg of narcotics from a boat off the Gujarat coast in September 2022. It was allegedly sent by a Pakistan-based smuggler at his behest.

The case was later taken over by the National Investigation Agency (NIA). A special court had granted Bishnoi's remand till September 12-16 and later extended it till September 18.

As his police remand ended, the court on Monday sent him to judicial custody.

In his plea, Bishnoi said he had been behind bars for almost 10 years and was "constantly wrongly pinned in different cases by different investigating agencies." 

"My rights as an accused have not been dignified before any of the courts concerned and I have been titled as a gangster and now recently I have been thrust upon the title of a terrorist," he said.

The NIA seeks to investigate his links to the terror organisation Babbar Khalsa International.

Bishnoi said he "strongly objected" to anyone addressing him as a terrorist or a gangster, as he loved his motherland and if given "justice" would live and die for the country.

He said he has never been convicted in any of the cases against him, and there is no strong proof against him either.

"Yet I have been treated as a convicted prisoner. I have been restricted from wearing a T-shirt having the image of respected true patriot Shree Bhagat Singh during my court visits or productions," his plea said.

Seeking his remand, the NIA had told the court it was required as it sought to unearth a criminal conspiracy hatched by him from jail along with wanted Pakistani smugglers.

The NIA said that, during interrogation, Bishnoi partly admitted he has been involved in the supply of weapons through the jail as well as in the funding of proscribed terror organisation Babbar Khalsa International through his aides by supplying them weapons.

The same needed to be unearthed, the NIA had told the court.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)