Indian extortion, shooting suspect was in Canada illegally on student visa
An Indian foreign national charged in two major extortion cases in British Columbia was illegally residing in Canada on an expired student visa when the alleged crimes took place.
An Indian foreign national charged in two major extortion cases in British Columbia was illegally residing in Canada on an expired student visa when the alleged crimes took place, according to court documents. To make matters worse, police now admit the suspect likely skipped the country a full year before he was charged.
24-year-old Vikram Sharma and his co-accused, Abjeet Kingra, 26, are accused of acting on instructions from the Lawrence Bishnoi gang to allegedly set fire to vehicles and discharge firearms into the Coolwood, B.C., residence of Punjabi musician AP Dhillon in September 2024.
Sharma was first flagged by immigration officials weeks before the 2024 attacks in Surrey and on Vancouver Island for submitting fraudulent documents in an attempt to renew the visa that originally permitted his entry into Canada in June 2022.
His student visa expired in April 2024, and Sharma is now believed to be in India after leaving Canada through Toronto’s Lester B. Pearson International Airport on October 9, 2024 — weeks after conducting his alleged arson and shooting extortions on behalf of the India-based Lawrence Bishnoi gang.
According to an October 2025 statement from the RCMP, BC Prosecution Services were only able to approve charges against Sharma a full year after he is thought to have left the country.
“At the time of the offence, Mr. Sharma was a foreign national in Canada with no status,” Crown prosecutor Jess Patterson informed the judge during proceedings.
Details about Sharma’s immigration status emerged during a bail hearing for his alleged accomplice.
The information was initially under a publication ban, which was lifted after Kingra was sentenced for his role in the September 2024 assault on Dhillon’s home near Victoria.
In delivering the sentence, a judge acknowledged Kingra’s involvement was not isolated, noting his connection to the Lawrence Bishnoi crime group in India and that he was acting on their instructions to commit targeted criminal acts in Canada.
As previously reported by True North, the CBSA says it has initiated investigations into 96 foreign nationals but removed only five individuals related to their extortion investigations. The federal policing and border agencies also made the controversial decision not to release the names of any of those deported.
Kingra’s lawyer told a judge he came to Canada in 2019 to study at Burnaby’s Alexander College before moving to Winnipeg in 2021 to pursue permanent residency.
The cases of Sharma and Kingra offer insight into Canada’s ongoing extortion crisis, as they are among the few individuals named by Canadian authorities in relation to the crisis.
Earlier this week, during a standing committee on immigration, Canada Border Services Agency president Erin O’Gorman admitted Ottawa has lost track of more than 30,000 individuals thought to be in the country illegally.
New data from the CBSA, in response to an order question paper submitted by Conservative immigration critic Michelle Rempel, also show that just over 10,000 individuals on the agency’s “wanted list” have been at large for longer than a year.