NEW DELHI - Indian police claimed to have arrested renowned Khalistan leader Amritpal Singh in Rode village of Moga district of Punjab.
The popular Sikh leader was shifted to Indian state Assam’s Dibrugarh, where eight of Khalistan leaders are already being held under the draconian law National Security Act. Amritpal Singh openly supports the cause of independent Khalistan, the separatist movement calling for a separate homeland for people of Sikh faith. He is a staunch follower of Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, who started the Khalistan Movement in 1982 and was killed in Operation Blue Star in 1984 by the Indian Army. The rise of Singh, a preacher in the northwestern state of Punjab where Sikhs are in the majority, has revived talk of an independent Sikh homeland. Tens of thousands of people had died in the 1980s and early 1990s during the Sikh freedom movement.
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According to Indian media, the Punjab government decided to shift Singh to jail in Assam, more than 2,600 km away from Punjab, on the directions of the Centre. It said the decision was taken to avoid any kind of jailbreak or protests if Singh was lodged in any prison in Punjab or Haryana. The arrest of Amritpal Singh, 30 — who leads a group called Waris Punjab De (the heirs of Punjab) — came after the self-styled preacher and hundreds of his supporters stormed a police station with swords and firearms, demanding the release of one of his aides. Police had accused Singh and his supporters of attempted murder, obstruction of law enforcement, and creating disharmony, and said he had been on the run since mid-March. He was arrested in the village gurudwara, a Sikh temple, under the National Security Act, which allows for those deemed a threat to national security to be detained without charge for up to a year, the police official said.
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