Image source: Wikipedia
Khalistani extremist and chief of fundamentalist Sikh organization Amritpal Singh has been arrested by Punjab Police on Sunday in Rode village of Moga district of Punjab. At 6:45pm. The stringent NSA Act has been invoked against the 30 year old fugitive and Amritpal is set to be transferred to Dibrugarh Jail in Assam.
Punjab Police in a tweet informed that the separatist leader had been arrested by the Punjab police and Intelligence unit on Sunday and the police urged the citizens to maintain peace and communal harmony and also avoid spreading fake news.
Three days ago the wife of the fugitive, Kirandeep Kaur, was stopped from boarding a flight for London and was questioned by the customs department.
Amritpal Singh, the head of Waaris Punjab De organization, was hiding from Punjab Police since March 18, the day Police started crackdown on extremists. Since then many fugitives have been arrested by the police. Papaljeet Singh, a close aide of Amritpal was arrested on 11th April by the police.
This militant was arrested from Gurudwara Janam Asthan Sant Khalsa of Rode Village, which is the birth place of Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, another extremist militant from Punjab.
Provisions for arrest
Amritpal and his aides have been booked under various charges such as Kidnapping, abduction, threating police officers are said to have link with Pakistani ISI among others. As they have been booked under the NSA it is now a minimum jail term of 12 months for Amritpal until extended further.
As per the NSA the police can arrest a person without substantiating charges for ten days in regular circumstances.
Background of Amritpal
Until recently Amritpal Singh was based in Dubai. But the 12th class educated fugitive arrived in India in September 2022 and was chosen as head of ‘Waaris Punjab De’ by the people.
Warris Punjab De is an organization founded in 2021 by late Punjabi actor Deep Sidhu for ‘Protection of rights of Punjabis and Punjab’s culture’.
Amritpal, who recently dressed as normal, started wearing traditional Sikh clothing and grew his hair. It was allegedly to imitate Bhindranwale from the 1980s.
As per intel reports Amritpal was trained by ISI in Georgia and it is alleged that Khalistan is a geopolitical project of Pakistan to shackle India, as per a Canada based think tank.
Also, it is known that the separatist leader was in close contact with an anti-india organization ‘Sikh for Justice’.
Khalistan Movement
image source: wikimedia commons
Khalistan Movement is a Sikh nationalistic movement which gained traction in the 1980s with the rise of Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale. It is a movement to allegedly protect the rights of Sikhs and culture of Punjab by formation of a new nation for Sikhs called Khalistan.
The roots of Khalistan can be found in the year 1980 when the sikh leader Jagjit Singh Chouhan demanded Khalistan for the first time.
Since then the movement gained traction. This movement finds a miniscule support in India but is mostly active in countries like Canada and UK.
In the year 1984 when Bhindranwale was killed under ‘Operation Bluestar’ the movement lost its much support
As of now Amritpal is expected to be in Jail for a longer period of time and the movement is expected to lose its support in India.
