Indian police arrest Sikh separatist leader Amritpal Singh | 24CA News
Indian police have arrested a separatist chief who has revived requires an impartial Sikh homeland and the secession of India’s northern Punjab state, which has a historical past of violent insurgency.
Amritpal Singh had been on the run since final month after capturing nationwide consideration in February, when a whole lot of his supporters stormed a police station in Ajnala, a city in Punjab state, with wood batons, swords and weapons to demand the discharge of a jailed aide.
Punjab state police tweeted Sunday that Singh was arrested in Moga, a city within the state.
A Sikh non secular chief, Jasbir Singh Rodde, stated Singh surrendered to police after providing morning prayers at a Sikh shrine in Moga. Police then arrested and took him away, he stated.
Police officer Sukhchain Singh Gill stated police had surrounded the native village on intelligence that Singh was within the shrine.
“Relentless pressure built by the police over the past 35 days left Singh with no choice,” Gill instructed reporters.
He stated the police didn’t enter the shrine, implying that Singh was taken into custody after he left. The officer declined to substantiate that Singh surrendered to police as claimed by his supporters. The officer stated Singh was flown to Dibrugarh in India’s northeast the place he will probably be detained till he is delivered to courtroom to face prices.
Punjab suffered a bloody insurgency within the Nineteen Eighties that led to the killing of India’s then-prime minister, Indira Gandhi, by her Sikh bodyguards at her official residence in New Delhi. Her killing triggered bloody rioting by her Hindu supporters towards Sikhs in northern India.
Ashwini Dubey, a lawyer in Punjab state, stated Singh’s arrest would assist police to dismantle the separatist community and its supporters.
Tavleen Singh, a political commentator and former journalist who lined the Punjab insurgency within the Nineteen Eighties, stated: “The police took this man out, which is good because had they gone into a gurdwara (Sikh shrine), and started shooting you would have had a reaction from the general populous. The Sikhs happen to be very sensitive to gurdwaras being attacked.”
Sikhs are a spiritual minority in India and say they’re discriminated towards by the bulk Hindus. More than 3,000 folks had been killed by extremists in the course of the Nineteen Eighties insurgency within the affluent farming state. The insurgency was crushed by Indian forces by 1990.
Punjab borders India-controlled Kashmir and Pakistan. India accuses Pakistan of supporting, coaching and arming insurgents, a cost Islamabad denies.
Police declared Singh a fugitive. They accused the 30-year-old preacher and his aides of making discord within the state. Police accused them of spreading disharmony amongst folks, tried homicide, attacking police personnel and obstructing public servants’ lawful discharge of responsibility.
Authorities have deployed hundreds of paramilitary troopers within the state and arrested almost 100 of his supporters. Singh’s spouse was prevented from leaving India final week.
Very little was identified about Singh till he arrived in Punjab state in 2022 and commenced main marches calling for the safety of rights for Sikhs, who account for about 1.7 per cent of India’s inhabitants.
Singh claims to attract inspiration from Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, a Sikh militant chief accused by the Indian authorities of main an armed insurgency for Khalistan within the Nineteen Eighties. Bhindranwale and his supporters had been killed in 1984 when the Indian military stormed the Golden Temple, the holiest shrine within the Sikh faith.
Singh has styled himself after Bhindranwale, with a protracted, flowing beard. He additionally attire like Bhindranwale.
Singh additionally heads Waris Punjab De, or Punjab’s Heirs, a company that was a part of an enormous marketing campaign to mobilize farmers towards controversial agriculture reforms being pushed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s authorities. The laws triggered a yr of protests that started in 2020, as farmers, most of them Sikhs from Punjab state, camped on the outskirts of New Delhi by way of a harsh winter and devastating coronavirus surge. The protests ended after Modi’s authorities withdrew the laws in November 2021.
Waris Punjab De was based by Deep Sidhu, an Indian actor who died in 2022 in a visitors accident.
Singh’s speeches have develop into more and more standard amongst supporters of the Khalistan motion, which is banned in India. Officials see it and affiliated teams as a nationwide safety menace. Even although the motion has waned over time, it nonetheless has some assist in Punjab and past, together with in nations like Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom, that are house to a sizeable Sikh diaspora.
Last month, supporters of the motion pulled down the Indian flag on the nation’s excessive fee in London and smashed the constructing’s home windows in a present of anger towards the transfer to arrest Singh. India’s Foreign Ministry denounced the incident and summoned the U.Okay.’s deputy excessive commissioner in New Delhi to protest what it known as the breach of safety on the embassy in London. The supporters of the Khalistan motion additionally vandalized the Indian Consulate in San Francisco within the United States.
© 2023 The Canadian Press
