The New Indian has exclusively accessed footage of the continuing cat-and-mouse chase between Punjab cops and Khalistani radical Amritpal Singh and his men. The video shows Amritpal slipping away by inches as the cops came close to nab the self-styled Sikh preacher, who has been on the run since the crackdown on his organisation Waris Punjab De began on March 18.
The high-intensity chase took place in the cramped streets of the Mehatpur area of Jalandhar, Punjab.
The operation is being led by six Punjab cops – DGP Gaurav Yadav, ADG Pramod Ban, ADG Amit Prasad, Jalandhar Commissioner Kuldeep Chahal, IPS Swapan Sharma, and Gurmeet Chauhan.
In the footage, Jalandhar Commissioner Kuldeep Chahal is seen running after Amritpal and his men. Footage also shows Amritpal’s men possessing several cars which brought to memory similar police raids on controversial Sirsa’s Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim. So far, Punjab police have detained 78 people in connection to the case.
On Tuesday, another set of footage of Amritpal riding a pillion on a bike emerged. Punjab Police said the pro-Khalistan activist escaped on a motorcycle wearing western clothes after hiding in a Gurdwara at Nangal Ambian village in Jalandhar district. Punjab police also said that Amritpal had already been booked under the stringent National Security Act (NSA). The “Waris Punjab De” chief along with his aides was booked under the stringent NSA on March 18 night on the orders of the district magistrates of various districts.
Meanwhile, Punjab and Haryana High Court on Tuesday pulled up the Punjab government for failing to arrest Amritpal saying that the state had an 80,000-strong police force. The court said with such a strong force if the Waris Punjab De chief managed to flee, it wouldn’t be wrong to call it an intelligence failure on part of the security forces and the government.
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 religio-political 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 has been planted by Pakistan spy agency Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) to disturb peace and harmony in Punjab, which has been, by and large, peaceful after the killing of Khalistani militant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale in 1984.