It seems as if it has become almost normal for a Punjabi artist to face an attack every few weeks. In September 2026 alone there were three attacks- on Gulab Sidhu, Ammy Virk and AP Dhillon. In November 2023, shots were fired outside Gippy Grewal’s home in West Vancouver, Canada. However, just when everyone thought that it was singers and actors who were being targeted, Kapil Sharma too came in the line of fire- four times. The comedian’s restaurant, Kap’s Café in Surrey, British Columbia, Canada, was reportedly targeted in multiple shooting incidents linked to alleged extortion attempts by the Lawrence Bishnoi gang. On July 10, 2025, the newly opened café faced its first shooting, with around 10 rounds being fired. On August 7 dozens of bullets were fired, while on October 16 a shooting took place at 3:45 am, shattering the windows while staff were present inside. May 2026 was when the last gunfire incident was reported near the cafe.
Primarily, the groups behind these attacks have allegedly been Lawrence Bishnoi, Rohit Godara, and Bambiha gangs.The beginning
This entire chapter, started, ofcourse, with the May 2022 murder of rapper and politician Sidhu Moose Wala. 28-year-old Moose Wala was shot dead in Jawaharke village of Mansa, with Lawrence Bishnoi’s gang reportedly claiming responsibility in an unverified Facebook post, though he denied the claim.
However, even in 2022 this wasn’t a new phenomenon. In 2018, unidentified persons shot Punjabi singer Parmish Verma in Mohali, who sustained a gunshot in the thigh. Gangster Dilpreet Singh reportedly claimed on his FB page that he was behind the shooting. The same year, the body of Navjot Singh, an upcoming singer was found in a plot of land in Dera Bassi. During the same time, Grewal had said that he too had allegedly received extortion threats via video calls from Dilpreet.However, there seems to be no one clear reason for these attacks.
Why the attacks happenIf one puts together the reasons for some of these attacks, four main reasons emerge:1) Prime targets: The Punjabi music industry generates a minimum of over ₹700 crores annually, making it one of the largest and fastest-growing regional music markets in India, making them a prime target.2) Fear factor: Just like the targeting of Salman Khan instilled fear into Bollywood sometime back, when famous Punjabi artists are targeted, it results in crazy media attention, raising their overall fear factor. This makes extorting money easier for them.3) Rivalries: Artists are also threatened if they are close to some other rival factions, or even if they’re not, but if that’s the perception which has been formed.4) The Canadian factor: A lot of successful Punjabi artists either have homes, businesses or travel often to Canada, where the organised crime network is reportedly very strong.A reminder of the 90s hip-hop eraDirector Navjot Gulati, who’s most recent project Pooja Meri Jaan stars Huma Qureshi and Mrunal Thakur on OTT, shared his thoughts on the rationale behind these attacks.
Director Navjot Gulati | “I think it’s because the gangsters know the power of music and how influential all these singers are. I believe they are being targeted because the gangsters want to make a statement that if they don’t get what they will harm anyone. The funny thing, however, is that they don’t really know what they want. It just feels that they just want to be in the news and to be relevant in some way, because till now there’s no direct demands that they have made. I don’t really know why it keeps happening, but there’s obviously something which is going on in the inner circles of the Punjabi music industry, especially after what happened to Moose Wala. So it’s a recurring pattern where you see that whoever is famous is targeted,” Gulati told us.
The Notorious B.I.G | He then spoke about the connection with the state of hip-hop killings in the 90s, including that of Tupac Shakur, in which just a month back an ex-gang member was convicted in the case, 30 years later. Duane “Keffe D” Davis was found guilty of first-degree murder on August 31, 2026, for orchestrating the 1996 drive-by shooting of rap icon Tupac Shakur.
Tupac | “If you remember there was a time in the 90s when there were high-profile shootouts, the most famous of which were the killings of Tupac Shakur and The Notorious B.I.G. One of the many reasons for those was that the gangsters wanted their narrative to be showcased through the singer’s music videos. Maybe, in the same way these people want their narrative to be showcased in the music videos and lyrics of the Punjabi singers – this is just an assumption from my side,” Gulati claimed.