Uttar Pradesh/April 3, 2024: Police on Sunday found the CCTV footage from the Pilibhit gurudwara missing. The footage of March 25 was completely missing, as of the police statement and the recording resumed the next day.
On March 30, following the recovery of an abandoned vehicle suspected of being used by the ‘Waris Punjab De’ chief Amritpal Singh. One Joga Singh who was a volunteer at the gurudwara was arrested from Ludhiana on suspicion of having collaborated with the absconding culprit. The abandoned car was discovered near Phagwara in Punjab on March 28. Gurwant Singh, the person driving it, was apprehended by police the following day in Hoshiarpur.
The vehicle has a registration plate of Uttarakhand and was registered to Mohan Singh the chief Jathedar of Badhpura gurudwara in Pilibhit. It was last seen parked within the gurudwara’s premises before being abandoned. Speculations from the government suggest that Amritpal may have planned on seeking refuge in Uttarakhand.
UP police have questioned several people concerning the fugitive after witnesses in the city of Meerut claimed to have seen a person bearing similar facial and physical features such that of Amritpal Singh.
Why is Amritpal being hunted?
Let us remind you that the ‘Waris Punjab De’ chief Amritpal Singh has been on the run for the past seventeen days after an arrest warrant for the criminal was approved by the court. Amritpal Singh is being hunted down by both the Punjab Police along with the Central agencies, regarding his connections to Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and terror links. Since then he has been labelled as the most wanted man in India currently.
The hunt down for Amritpal came out after a bunch of his supporters attempted to storm into a police station in Ajnala in Amritsar. His supporters wielded swords and other sharp objects with the sole intention of causing harm, causing many police personnel to be injured. Some were seen carrying firearms, most of which were not registered.
The clash took place after the police had booked Amritpal and his close aides for kidnapping a man. Amritpal’s supporters had earlier asked the police to cancel the FIR that was lodged against him and his supporters. In September 2022, during Amritpal’s turban ceremony he had claimed to be Bhindrawale, a dreaded Khalistani leader.
Threats to the Union Home Minister
Amritpal had sent out threats to the Union Home Minister, telling that he would meet the same fate as the former Prime Minister of India, Indira Gandhi, who was assassinated by the Sikh bodyguards. Amritpal had also publicly preached about obtaining a separate country for the Sikhs also known as Khalistan. Which attracted the attention of the central agencies.
The hunt for Amritpal
Internet including SMS were shut down across the state of Punjab for more than a week. During this, the Punjab police had arrested several supporters of the self-proclaimed preacher, some of whom were transferred to Dibrugarh jail in Assam. The number of those arrested is close to 120, and the numbers keep climbing with the police’s progress.
The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has been handed over the case, to investigate Amritpal’s terror links and foreign funding.
The wanted fugitive has been on the run ever since then, neighbouring states like Uttarakhand and Maharashtra have beefed up their state borders to not allow any possibility of Amritpal or his accomplices to enter.
With the police’s search efforts continuing and things starting to heat up, the Khalistani leader’s run might soon come to an end.
The London protest
The March 19 attack on the Indian high commission in London, was orchestrated by Khalistani students from nearby colleges. Where the mob tried to take down the tricolour with the intention of setting it aflame, luckily they were unsuccessful with their objective. The main culprit behind the attack was a political asylum seeker by the name of Avtar Singh Khanda alias Azaad whose official government name is Ranjodh Singh, the chief of the banned terror outfit Khalistan Liberation Force (KLF). His father was gunned down by the security forces in 1991.
