New Delhi: A special NIA judge Saturday conducted proceedings against gangster Anmol Bishnoi in connection with his alleged links to a network of gangs at the National Investigation Agency (NIA) headquarters—a historic first—rather than at the regular Patiala House Court.
Anmol Bishnoi, alias Bhanu, had moved a plea before the court on the evening of Friday, days before his 11-day NIA custody was scheduled to end. His plea cited threats to his life from Pakistan-based gangster Shahzad Bhatti.
The younger brother of jailed gangster Lawrence Bishnoi, Anmol, was deported by the United States, followed by the NIA taking him into custody.
On Saturday, the Special NIA Judge Prashant Sharma invoked special provisions—specifically, Section 12 under the NIA Act, 2008, regarding the “place of sitting”—to hold Anmol’s hearing at the NIA HQ in the Capital.
Earlier in court, Anmol’s counsel, advocate Rajani, flagged a video uploaded on 24 November to Instagram, purportedly containing threats issued to Lawrence Bishnoi, naming his brother Anmol, and his uncle and counsel Deepak Nanda, asking Lawrence to save them if he could.
The judge has sent Anmol Bshnoi to seven more days of NIA custody, and the agency will now have him till 5 December.
Anmol, in his plea, had requested the court to direct the NIA to provide adequate security and police protection during his transit from the agency’s headquarters to the court. Additionally, he had pleaded to be transferred in a bulletproof jacket in a bulletproof vehicle during his production before the court.
Earlier last week, Judge Sharma had sent Anmol Bishnoi to NIA custody for 11 days, since the agency had sought his custody to interrogate and investigate the nexus of gangs.
Shahzad Bhatti & Anmol Bishnoi cases
Shahzad Bhatti earlier had released a video claiming responsibility for a grenade attack on the home of a social media influencer in Jalandhar earlier this year. Anmol referred to the same grenade attack—targeting YouTuber Rozer Sandhu—in his plea to seek court protection.
“That in March 2025, in Jalandhar, Punjab, a serious incident was reported wherein a grenade was hurled at the residence of a social media influencer, after similar threatening videos were issued by the same foreign-based gangster. The said attack, though fortunately not resulting in loss of life, clearly establishes that such threats are real, actionable, and capable of being executed through local criminal proxies. This incident has been widely reported and highlights the grave and imminent danger posed by such cross-border criminal networks,” Anmol Bishnoi said in his plea.
“That in view of these developments, the continuous nature of the threats, and the demonstrated pattern of actual violence, the applicant/accused (persons) have a genuine and reasonable apprehension of imminent danger to his life and liberty, as well as to the safety of his counsel,” he further submitted to the court.
Anmol’s name made news in the aftermath of the killing of Baba Siddique, after the main shooter in the case—Zeeshan Akhtar—who stands accused of pumping bullets into the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader, released a video, thanking Anmol for helping him flee India. Wanted in nearly 40 cases across the country, Anmol is also the key accused in the murder case of Punjabi singer Siddhu Moose Wala. The agency had alleged that Anmol was a key figure in a network of gangsters and also got involved with the separatist outfit Babbar Khalsa International. Referring to this, NIA counsel Rahul Tyagi and advocate Amit Rohilla had sought Anmol’s remand after he fled the country on a fake passport in 2022.
(Edited by Madhurita Goswami)