A man charged in two high-profile B.C. extortion incidents was living in Canada on an expired student visa at the time of his alleged crimes, according to court records.
CBC News has learned that Vikram Sharma was flagged by authorities weeks before attacks in Surrey and on Vancouver Island in 2024 because he allegedly relied on fraudulent documents in his bid to extend the visa that first allowed him into Canada in June 2022.
The 24-year-old — whose student visa expired in April 2024 — is currently believed to be in India.
Prosecutors said Sharma fled Canada via Toronto Pearson International Airport on Oct. 9, 2024.
That was more than a month after he and co-accused Abjeet Kingra allegedly torched Punjabi musician AP Dhillon’s vehicles and fired into his home at the behest of the Lawrence Bishnoi gang.
Abjeet Kingra took this body-camera footage of himself firing 14 rounds into AP Dhillon’s Colwood, B.C., home in September 2024. He uploaded the footage to the internet within hours of the attack, which allowed the India-based Lawrence Bishnoi gang to take responsibility. Dhillon, a Punjabi musician, was targeted for featuring Bollywood actor Salman Khan in a music video.
“At the time of the offence, Mr. Sharma was a foreign national in Canada with no status,” Crown prosecutor Jess Patterson told the judge overseeing the case.
“Prior to the offence, Mr. Sharma had provided some fraudulent documents to Immigration, Refugee and Citizenship Canada trying to re-establish his student visa, but because they were determined to be fraudulent, he was required to have an in-person attendance meeting.”
The details of Sharma’s immigration status were revealed at a bail hearing that had been subject to a publication ban — prior to the recent sentencing of Sharma’s co-accused in the attack on Dhillon’s Victoria-area home, which occurred in September 2024.
‘Fell in with the wrong crowd’
Kingra — who also came to Canada on a student visa — is serving six years in jail after pleading guilty to the attack on Dhillon’s home this fall.
Both he and Sharma were charged in October in connection with a separate arson and shooting that occurred prior to the Vancouver Island case, at the home of a Surrey resident who had been subject to extortion threats.
Kingra is slated to appear from jail in Surrey court on Thursday for a bail hearing related to the new charge.
CBC News has listened to Kingra’s earlier court proceedings, and obtained exhibits from his sentencing, which provide a window into the aftermath of the crime and the lives of the two men who were allegedly carrying out orders on behalf of an Indian transnational gang.
The details are significant — because only a handful of people have been charged to date in relation to a wave of Lower Mainland extortion threats that prompted the formation of a task force including municipal police, RCMP and other authorities like the Canada Border Services Agency.
In this video, security cameras capture a man alleged to be Vikram Sharma as he pours gasoline on two vehicles parked at Punjabi singer AP Dhillon’s house in September 2024 before setting the cars on fire. Sharma’s co-accused Abjeet Kingra is then seen stepping forward and firing 14 rounds into Dhillon’s Colwood, B.C., house. Sharma has since fled to India. Kingra is serving a six-year sentence.
By the end of November, the CBSA says it’s initiated investigations into 96 foreign nationals and removed five individuals related to the investigations.
But the CBSA has not provided any public documentation about the removals.
In addition, the agency has cited privacy legislation, and the need to protect the integrity of investigations, as reasons not to provide specifics about the individuals who have been targeted.
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 in pursuit of permanent residency.
He struggled to find employment, picking up work with a moving company and a phone company.
“He acknowledges that he fell in with the wrong crowd and became involved with the co-accused, Vikram Sharma, ” Kingra’s lawyer told the judge at his sentencing hearing.
“While he’s not trying to minimize the seriousness of the conduct, he wants to place it in the proper context. He was contracted for this act … he was retained and did so on information provided to him that the residence was unoccupied.”
Targeted by Bishnoi gang
The federal government listed the Bishnoi gang as a terrorist entity in September, claiming that “specific communities have been targeted for terror, violence and intimidation.”
Named after imprisoned founder Lawrence Bishnoi, the Bishnoi gang emerged from Punjab in northwest India into a multimillion-dollar global criminal enterprise rooted in drug smuggling and extortion.
Patterson said Dhillon fell into the gang’s crosshairs with a music video featuring Salman Khan, a Bollywood star targeted for hunting a type of antelope revered by the Bishnoi community.
Although Dhillon was not home at the time of the attack on Sept. 2, 2024, the prosecutor said the musician’s roommate narrowly missed injury or death as Sharma lit two vehicles on fire in the driveway and Kingra fired 14 shots at the house — all in view of a security camera.
Kingra also filmed the damage with a body camera himself, uploading the video onto the internet within hours of the incident so the Bishnoi gang could take credit for attacking Dhillon.
“The footage is almost cinematic in nature,” Judge Lisa Mrozinski told Kingra as she sentenced him.
“[It’s] the kind of thing one might see in a violent movie or a video game, certainly not in real life, and certainly not in a residential neighbourhood in Langford, British Columbia.”
A narrow escape
Patterson said cameras recorded a black Mercedes, belonging to Sharma, surveilling Dhillon’s house before the attack which happened just after 1 a.m. PT.
The same vehicle was recorded leaving a Super 8 hotel on the Trans-Canada Highway in nearby Duncan, as Kingra and Sharma headed to the scene.
Following the attack, the prosecutor said an RCMP officer on a motorcycle stopped the Mercedes a few kilometres away as Kingra and Sharma drove away from Dhillon’s home.
The officer — who was aware of the arson and shooting a short distance away — noticed a gas can, without a cap, sitting on the back seat after asking the driver to roll down his window.
Video of the stop shows the officer withdrawing his gun and ordering Kingra and Sharma to put their hands on the dash before the car accelerates away from the curb, driving northbound until the pair crashed — abandoning the vehicle, still running, with the door wide open.
“The two of them then, sometime later in the morning, took a cab from that area to B.C. Ferries and fled [Vancouver] Island,” Patterson said at the sentencing.
“They left the Island on the 7 a.m. ferry.”
‘I did a horrible and terrifying thing’
It’s unclear how Sharma and Kingra got from the Lower Mainland to Ontario, where Sharma made his way out of the country and Kingra was apprehended in Barrie nearly two months later.
At the bail hearing, Patterson said Kingra was believed to be on his way to Toronto airport when he was arrested.
Two days later, two men claiming to be Kingra’s friends allegedly showed up at his Winnipeg apartment in an unsuccessful attempt to get his passport.
The court file includes a letter from Kingra’s girlfriend, who lives in Surrey and has known him since they were children.
“Hearing of his arrest was one of the most shocking and heartbreaking moments of my life,” she wrote.
“The man I know is nothing like the person these charges suggest.”
Kingra also handwrote an apology letter “to the victim and community.”
“I did a horrible and terrifying thing that could lead to harm, injured or kill someone that was never my intention,” Kingra wrote.
“This is a big mistake that not only scared victim and his family but the community too.”
