What is the Bishnoi gang and how could it be linked to Hardeep Singh Nijjar's killing?

The three men charged in the alleged conspiracy to murder Hardeep Singh Nijjar — Karan Brar, Kamalpreet Singh and Karanpreet Singh — are all believed to be connected to the Lawrence Bishnoi gang, according to sources involved in the Nijjar investigation.

Canadian police sources say the Bishnoi gang is one of a number of criminal enterprises from the Punjab and Haryana states in northern India that have spread into North America in recent years, even as its founder Lawrence Bishnoi has languished in Indian prisons since 2014.

Many features of the gang culture from which the Bishnois emerged would be familiar to observers of North American organized crime. Others are distinctly Indian.

Punjabi gangsters rap on YouTube, flash guns, vehicles and bling on Instagram and issue threats via Facebook. While a gang might murder in response to a rival's diss track, the same gang might vow revenge for the violation of a religious taboo, as the Bishnois have against one of India's most famous movie stars.

Their violence is partly rooted in village codes of honour and vendetta, but it's mainly driven by modern imperatives of business and politics. Indian media describe drug smuggling and extortion as the gangs' biggest sources of income, both at home and abroad.

Nijjar, a prominent Sikh activist, was gunned down outside his gurdwara in Surrey, B.C. last June. In September, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau rose in the House of Commons to state that «Canadian security agencies have been actively pursuing credible allegations of a potential link between agents of the government of India» and Nijjar's killing.

The three men arrested on Friday face first-degree murder and conspiracy charges in the Nijjar case. The men have not yet filed pleas in