India, Oct. 21 -- A chase by the Punjab Police first pushed gangster Lawrence Bishnoi into Jaipur, where he graduated from campus violence to the liquor trade. An extortion attempt on a leading Rajasthan doctor then landed him in a Jodhpur prison, where he met members of the now Bishnoi clan. A murder case later brought him to a Jodhpur court on January 4, 2018, the same day Bollywood actor Salman Khan was in the court complex for a hearing in the blackbuck poaching case.

That was the day Bishnoi first threatened Khan. The timing was a coincidence but the enmity that keeps Khan under heavy security till today and has also led to deaths, was years in the making - shaped by fate and greed that brought Bishnoi from Punjab to Rajasthan.

Whe...