This article goes into how the transnational crime cartel run by Bishnoi recruits its people. Poverty, the loss of an earning family member, and poor prospects and a host of other factors help to contribute to the allure of the criminal life style.
Posted by ewatta200
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**Sonepat:** Riwara village in the Gohana tehsil of Haryana’s Sonepat district is like any bucolic rural community north of the Capital. It’s an old village in a tehsil where Prithviraj Chauhan once built a fort that was destroyed by Mohammad Ghori in 1192.
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There’s a sameness through the alleys and byways of Riwara. Elders cluster around gurgling *hukkahs* outside their homes; several gates boast of sons in the Delhi or Haryana Police. There’s peace, and unhurriedness.
But there’s also fear, fine and pervasive like sand left by a storm. It centres on the ‘*baalak*’, or children, and the threat that the lure of organised crime, as represented by gangster Lawrence Bishnoi, poses to the parents. The jailed gangster’s network is constantly on the lookout for ‘use-and-throw’ footsoldiers, casual criminals of the disposable kind.
Apparently, Riwara is a happy hunting ground for Lawrence Bishnoi’s global enterprise. It was only recently that the Delhi Police Crime Branch and Special Cell arrested four young men—Hakikat alias Sahil, Sagar, Arman and Tushar—from this very village for firing at singer Guru Randhawa’s gym in New Delhi’s Paschim Vihar at the behest of Lawrence Bishnoi and the Anil Pandit organised crime network (OCN).
Stories abound at Riwara, native village of Lawrence Bishnoi, of gullible young men getting trapped in the web of crime | Samridhi Tewari | ThePrint
The same day, the same network was also responsible for the murder of a gym owner in Hansi district of Haryana.
The police said that the boys, hired for anything between Rs 10,000 and 15,000, thought their acts were just ‘*hawabazi’* (bravado).
Their families don’t think so. Back in the village, their parents cower in shame, ducking questions about their criminal progeny. One family can’t even afford a lawyer, let alone get bail. Another family is dumbstruck by the court order that says ‘bail rejected’.
This incident—and other similar ones that are reported almost every week—have turned the spotlight on how ordinary friendships in villages are turning dangerous, and why parents are keeping a check on who their children follow on Instagram, the social media platform that has become a recruitment centre for single-use shooters.
# Angry village
In Riwara, the old men sit at the *sarpanch baithak* to discuss everyday affairs. Bishnoi is a name that comes up with an unmissable frequency. Sandeep, a 63-year-old farmer, says that it was during the Covid epidemic that everything changed. Pointing towards his phone, he says gravely, “This is the reason our youth is getting destroyed.”
He says the boys would sweat it out in the fields in earlier days, but now nobody wants to do these jobs, or real work. “Everybody wants a shortcut. Everybody wants a TV, an AC, a new car.”
Riwara has certainly changed. From providing recruits to the army and police, it is now a place for show-offs and face-offs. This ‘new’ culture is not short on visibility. Young men wear Louis Vuitton jackets, Porsche caps, Aston Martin T-shirts. New York City seems to be favourite legend for apparel. Most are fake, but that doesn’t seem to matter.
Cousins of Sagar, an arrested shooter, wear clothes displaying foreign brand prominently | Samridhi Tewari | ThePrint
Big SUVs like the Thar are their daily rides, mostly rented, much like their owners hope to be. “These young boys play loud music on speakers. Most of them are of Siddhu Moosewala, Amit Saini or Masoom Sharma. These songs glorify gun culture; pistols and revolvers have been mentioned in the lyrics,” Sandeep says, visibly angry. “They all think this film life is reality.”
A young 24-year-old feels the heat of Sandeep’s anger. He says, “It is *daaru*, *murga*, and *dabdaba* (alcohol, chicken and domination) that drives the young boys.” That’s a step up—or sideways—from the Maturam’s jalebi that Gohana is famous for.
***Also Read:*** [*2 firing incidents outside gyms in Delhi & Haryana. Gym owner dead, suspected Lawrence Bishnoi link under probe*](https://theprint.in/india/the-delhi-firing-incident-took-place-outside-a-gym-owned-by-singer-guru-randhawa-for-which-a-man-claiming-to-be-lawrence-bishnoi-gang-member-took-responsibility/2957419/)
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