New Delhi: Shiv Sena (UBT) MP Sanjay Raut has suggested that Union home minister Amit Shah and jailed gangster Lawrence Bishnoi are one and the same person. His statement has set off a political row.Raut, a Rajya Sabha member, made the remark while reacting to the recent firing incident involving actor Tiger Shroff. He also referred to the threats the Bishnoi gang allegedly made against Salman Khan, Rohit Shetty and other film personalities.Speaking at the party’s annual Dussehra rally in Mumbai, Raut said: “Lawrence Bishnoi does not even exist; Amit Shah himself is Lawrence Bishnoi.”Bishnoi, who is believed to be part of an international crime network, is currently lodged in Sabarmati jail in Gujarat. He is known for orchestrating the 2022 killing of singer and rival Sidhu Moosewala, the 2024 murder of politician Baba Siddiqui and for threats to actor Salman Khan over the killing of black bucks, which the Bishnoi community considers sacred.Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and Maharashtra ports and fisheries minister Nitesh Rane took a dig at Raut and asked whether he had been “sweeping floors in Sabarmati jail” to know what goes on inside.Also read: Bishnoi, a Punjab Cop, ‘John Wick,’ and ‘Jai Shri Ram’: The 37 Men Named in ‘Operation Hard Ball’“If the Opposition sees Bishnoi in Amit Shah, we see Dawood Ibrahim in Uddhav Thackeray, and Uddhav Thackeray in Dawood Ibrahim,” he said.On Sunday (October 18), a group claiming to represent the Bishnoi gang has taken responsibility for firing at Shroff’s car. Notably, the Mumbai Police have been unable to get custody of Bishnoi, lodged in Sabarmati Central Jail or his brother Anmol, lodged in Delhi’s Tihar Jail even in the case of earlier attacks on noted personalities like Siddiqui, Khan and Shetty in Mumbai. A Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) order bars investigating agencies from taking them out of the jail. In Shroff’s case, neither brother has been named as an accused so far.Bishnoi has been indicted in the United States for allegedly ordering the June 2023 assassination of Khalistani separatist Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Canada, marking the first time that the India-based gang have been criminally charged in connection with the killing that triggered an unprecedented diplomatic rupture between India and Canada. In September 2025, the Canadian government has designated the Bishnoi enterprise as a terrorist entity.Bishnoi is named in the US’s operation, dubbed ‘Operation Hard Ball,’ which listed the roles of gangsters and their associates involved in criminal acts, including the assassination of a “political and religious figure” in Canada in 2023. As per the gangsters, allegedly sold arms, extorted individuals, transported drugs and more – some, seemingly from within the walls of India’s most well-guarded jails.Bishnoi has projected an image of himself as a “patriot,” “nationalist,” and deeply religious individual through social media posts and interviews with news organisations. He has used this public image to recruit members and associates to his crime syndicate in India, the United States, and elsewhere, presiding over a “sweeping criminal enterprise that spanned multiple continents,” according to the indictment.Using contraband cellphones and other voice-over internet protocol devices smuggled into his jail cell, Bishnoi personally directed political assassinations, murders, shootings, extortions, kidnappings, drug trafficking, human smuggling, and other crimes committed by members and associates of the Bishnoi enterprise worldwide, the indictment added.