The cat-and-mouse game between pro-Khalistani radical Amritpal Singh and the Punjab Police comes to an end after they cut short his run.
Sources told The New Indian, the Waris Punjab De chief, who was on the run after a massive operation against him by the Punjab Police, was arrested following a sensational and clandestine operation between the central government and the state governments of Assam and Punjab.
The Waris Punjab De chief, along with six of his henchmen, were taken to Assam’s Dibrugarh jail, sources said. “The decision was taken keeping in mind the sensitivity of the situation as well as the security of the six persons arrested in the case,” sources added.
The six persons have been identified as Barjinder Singh, Ajay Pal Singh, Gurvir Singh, Savreet Singh, Gurpal Singh Pala and Amandeep Singh Joti.
While Barjinder Singh belongs to Barnala district, Ajay Pal Singh belongs to Moga and Gurvir Singh belongs to Hoshiarpur district. Savreet Singh hails from the Sangrur district, while Gurpal Singh Pala belongs to the Bathinda district. Amandeep Singh Jogi hails from Sirsa district in neighbouring Haryana.
Meanwhile, in the confession tape of the six arrested persons accessed by The New Indian, it has come to light that they admitted to being drug carriers. They also admitted to being carriers of arms from the hinterlands.
The confessions were made before Punjab Police during their raid around Jalandhar and Tarn Taran to nab Amritpal Singh, who is on the run from the law following the attack on Ajnala police station last month.
In a day of hectic developments, the authorities also arrested a key aide of self-proclaimed Khalistani sympathiser Amritpal Singh, Daljeet Singh Kalsi.
According to authorities, Kalsi is known to be the advisor and financier of Amritpal Singh.
It is learnt that Superintendent of Police (SP) Tejbir Singh, along with a team of Punjab Police personnel, had left for Dibrugarh by air from Delhi airport.
Punjab Police arrested 78 people and detained many others while its chief, Amritpal Singh, said to be linked to Pakistan’s spy agency ISI, is on the run, it said on Saturday.
The operation was led by six Punjab cops – DGP Gaurav Yadav, ADG Pramod Ban, ADG Amit Prasad, Jalandhar Commissioner Kuldeep Chahal, IPS Swapan Sharma and Gurmeet Chauhan.
Amritpal shot into the limelight after hundreds of his sword-brandishing young supporters stormed the Ajnala police station in Amritsar, demanding the release of one of his key aides – Lovepreet Singh Tufan, who was arrested in a kidnapping case. They pushed police barricades and attacked policemen. At least six policemen were injured in the resulting clashes.
The police said that the crackdown was launched based on the FIR lodged in the Amritsar district for an attack on the Ajnala police station in February.
Born in 1993, Amritpal Singh dramatically rose to prominence in Punjab’s religiopolitical scene after returning from Dubai to become the chief of Waris Punjab De after the death of its founder, actor Deep Sidhu, in a road accident last year.
Several reports quoting intelligence agencies said that he had been planted by Pakistani spy agency Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) to disturb peace and harmony in Punjab, which has been, by and large, peaceful since the killing of Khalistani militant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale in 1984.