ZEE5's Lawrence of Punjab Docu-Series Triggers Row in Punjab — Who Is Lawrence Bishnoi?
Congress threatens PIL, SAD seeks ban, Moosewala’s father speaks from Mansa — as a Zee5 docu-series set to stream April 27 reignites the debate on gangster glorification and Punjab’s identity
Arvind Chhabra
CHANDIGARH, April 22
A docu-series trailer lasting a few minutes has done what years of criminal proceedings could not — it has united Punjab’s fractured political class. Congress, the Shiromani Akali Dal, and the family of slain singer Sidhu Moosewala are speaking in one voice this week, all demanding that ZEE5 pull the plug on Lawrence of Punjab before it streams on April 27. The makers say it is a sociological study. Critics call it a celebration of crime. And at the centre of it all sits a question the trailer itself poses — how does a boy from a border village become the most feared gangster in India?
The Row
The storm broke over the weekend when ZEE5 released the trailer for Lawrence of Punjab, a docu-series directed by Raghav Darr and produced by Riverland Entertainment, built around gangster Lawrence Bishnoi and the criminal ecosystem he commands.
Punjab Congress president Amarinder Singh Raja Warring moved swiftly and sharply. He served a legal notice on the makers and announced a Public Interest Litigation in the Punjab and Haryana High Court. “Bhagat Singh is Punjab’s identity. Our soldiers are Punjab’s identity. Our farmers are Punjab’s identity. Not a gangster. Never a gangster,” Warring said. He added that the series amounted to a slap on every Punjabi who lost someone to the Bishnoi network — including, he pointed out, himself. Sidhu Moosewala was his close friend.
Congress leader Arshpreet Khadial went further, calling the series “a direct assault on Punjab’s identity and values.” He questioned why both the Centre and the state government had remained silent. “When such content openly distorts Punjab’s identity, silence becomes complicity,” he said, adding that the Congress would also approach the High Court by way of PIL.
Both Congress leaders made a pointed factual argument: Bishnoi, they noted, has nothing to do with Punjab — he belongs to Rajasthan and is currently lodged in Sabarmati Jail in Gujarat. The title, they argued, was therefore a deliberate misidentification.
Shiromani Akali Dal leader Arshdeep Singh Kler also sought a ban, and raised the stakes further. “Through this series, an attempt is being made to show the world that the youth of Punjab are gangsters,” he alleged, asking whether Punjab was being defamed under a conspiracy.
The most arresting voice, however, came not from any party office but from Mansa — where Balkaur Singh, father of Sidhu Moosewala, spoke to reporters. “There is no justification for showcasing the life of a person who is associated with extortion and the murder of my son, especially while the family still awaits justice,” he said. “It is unfortunate the entertainment world chose to make a series on a character that would cause scaremongering in the society.”
The Makers’ Defence
ZEE5 and Riverland Entertainment have defended the project as something more than a crime biography. “With Lawrence of Punjab, we wanted to move beyond the surface of crime narratives and explore the deeper cultural context that shapes them,” said Kaveri Das, Business Head, Hindi ZEE5. “This is not a story about glorifying individuals, but about understanding the ecosystem.”
Director Raghav Darr has said the series was always envisioned as an attempt to understand the why behind such identities — the environment, the influences, the systems. The series reportedly draws on law enforcement sources, legal experts, and voices connected to Punjab’s socio-political landscape.
Who Is Lawrence Bishnoi — And Why Does Punjab Matter to His Story?
The irony embedded in this entire controversy is one that politicians on all sides have been careful to sidestep: the man they are all calling an outsider to Punjab built his criminal identity squarely within it.
Lawrence Bishnoi — born Balkaran Brar on February 12, 1993, in the village of Dutarawali in Fazilka district — was sent to Chandigarh by his family for higher education. When his parents in Abohar’s Dutranwali village sent him to Chandigarh in 2007, they envisaged a promising future for the teenager, taking up law perhaps.
What followed was a different education entirely. Bishnoi became active in student politics at DAV College, Sector 10, from 2010 onwards. In 2011, he was announced the SOPU party president of the college, in the presence of slain Youth Akali Dal leader Vikramjit Singh Middukhera, alias Vicky Middukhera. That video — shot outside the college canteen — is one of the very few records of Bishnoi’s life before he turned notorious.
In 2009, while studying in Class XII, he had first met Vicky Middukhera — a student leader who formed alliances with gangsters and later joined politics — at a sports event. It was a connection that would define, and eventually destroy, both their trajectories. Middukhera was shot dead in Mohali in August 2021. The Bishnoi gang claimed Moosewala’s murder in 2022 as retaliation.
Between 2010 and 2017, 16 FIRs were registered against Bishnoi at different police stations across the tricity — cases of attempt to murder, issuing threats, and under the Arms Act. While six cases were registered in Chandigarh and seven in Mohali, three were registered in Panchkula.
It was in Chandigarh’s campuses and hostels, in other words — not in Rajasthan — that Bishnoi’s criminal career took shape. His roots may be in Fazilka and his ideology tied to the Bishnoi community’s traditions, but his rise as a gangster is a Chandigarh story. He is currently lodged in Sabarmati Jail in Ahmedabad.
The gang he commands is now far larger than any campus rivalry. It has been linked to the killing of Moosewala, threats against Salman Khan, the murder of politician Baba Siddique in Mumbai, and extortion networks that span several states.
What Happens Next
The PIL before the Punjab and Haryana High Court — threatened by both Warring and Khadial — will be the immediate legal test. Whether any court grants a stay before April 27 remains to be seen. Zee5 has given no indication of pulling or postponing the release.
The larger question the controversy raises is one the makers claim to be asking themselves: when does documenting organised crime become a service, and when does it cross into spectacle? Punjab, which has lived with the consequences of the Bishnoi network for over a decade, is not inclined to wait for that answer.
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