Going to the gym has become an integral part of Delhi-NCR’s urban culture. From five-star hotel fitness centres to 24x7 gyms catering to young professionals, from high-end establishments in colonies of Delhi, Noida and Gurugram to modest facilities in unauthorised colonies and urban villages, fitness centres have mushroomed across the National Capital Region.
Gymming, once largely associated with bodybuilding enthusiasts and professional athletes, has today become a mass-market service, and gyms a social space as much as a place for exercise. This rapid expansion has also raised uncomfortable question like what happens when a largely unregulated, cash-intensive and socially influential business intersects with the criminal underbelly of the NCR?
There is no official database showing gyms as a distinct category of crime, yet a pattern emerging from individual cases deserves attention. Earlier this month, 28-year-old gym owner and trainer Vijay Kumar was shot dead outside a gym in Aya Nagar in South Delhi. The incident is particularly significant because it shows how a perfectly ordinary urban business can become a point of contact for much older networks of rivalry and violence.
Last week we witnessed an audacious case in Gurgaon of a gym trainer chasing a woman biker and knocking her down. The accused claimed himself to be a state kabaddi player too.
Two years earlier, in September 2024, Nadir Shah, a gym owner in Greater Kailash-I, was shot outside his establishment. Police investigated a possible gang and extortion connection, while a gang-linked figure claimed responsibility on social media. There have also been instances of gyms becoming targets of extortion. In Burari in July 2024, Delhi Police arrested four people, including a juvenile, in connection with firing outside a gym during an alleged extortion attempt against its owner.
Why is this happening? Gyms bring together young men, aspiring bodybuilders, local influencers, entrepreneurs and people seeking social visibility. In some neighbourhoods, the gym is also a place where local networks are built. A business that generates regular cash flows, has a recognisable owner and attracts a steady stream of customers, can become vulnerable to extortion.
The challenge extends beyond organised crime. The gym has also become part of a changing urban culture of masculinity. Fitness has become an identity and appearance becomes a measure of social status, unhealthy pressures can emerge.
Trainers are influencers; members are content creators; gyms are studios for Instagram and YouTube; bodybuilding supplements are aggressively marketed; and physical appearance increasingly intersects with ideas of confidence, masculinity and status. Thus fitness has steadily moved from being a health activity to becoming a lifestyle industry.
This transformation has also affected neighbourhood life. Gyms that remain open late into the night generate traffic, parking pressure, music and movement at hours when residential neighbourhoods would otherwise be quiet. In densely populated areas, especially where commercial establishments have entered residential buildings, the distinction between a neighbourhood and a commercial zone has become increasingly blurred.
The problem is particularly acute in unauthorised colonies and urban villages, where land-use patterns are already complicated. A gym may occupy a basement, ground floor or converted residential premises. Questions of structural safety, ventilation, fire protection, electrical load, parking and emergency access always remain.
Delhi-NCR’s gym boom is ultimately a sign of a city changing. A population that once struggled to find recreational and fitness facilities now has them everywhere. The danger lies not in fitness itself but in allowing a rapidly expanding industry to grow faster than the institutions responsible for regulating it.
The gym should remain a place where people go to build strength. It should not become a place where the city’s existing networks of money, muscle and crime acquire another foothold. The challenge before Delhi-NCR is therefore not to stop the fitness passion but to ensure that it develops alongside regulation, safety, civic responsibility and a healthier urban culture.
Sidharth Mishra
Author and president, Centre for Reforms,
Development & Justice
