NEW DELHI, April 25 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Self-styled preacher Amritpal Singh, whose calls for Sikh independence riled India’s authorities, has been arrested in Punjab state.
The 30-year-old had been on the run for more than a month after evading arrest in Punjab on March 18.
He and his supporters have been accused of attempted murder and attacking police officials.
Punjab Police officials confirmed news of the arrest on Twitter and also appealed for peace.
Amritpal was arrested from Rode village in Punjab’s Moga district at around 6.45am on Sunday, the state’s inspector general Sukhchain Singh Gill said in a press conference.
He has been arrested under the stringent National Security Act (NSA), which allows for individuals to be detained without being charged for up to a year. He will be taken to the high-security Dibrugarh jail in Assam state, where some of his supporters have been kept.
Amritpal shot to prominence in February after hundreds of his supporters stormed a police station, demanding the release of an arrested aide.
His campaign brought back memories from the 1980s of a separatist insurgency and subsequent crackdown in Punjab in which thousands of people were killed.
Amritpal, who says he supports the Khalistan movement for a separate Sikh homeland, claims to draw inspiration from Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, a preacher accused by the Indian government of leading an armed insurgency in the 1980s. Bhindranwale was killed in the Indian army’s storming of the Golden Temple, the holiest shrine in the Sikh religion, in 1984.
The manhunt for Amritpal spanned several parts of northern India, including the capital Delhi and the states of Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand. Nepal had also put him on its surveillance list at India’s request.
Akal Takht, the supreme temporal seat of Sikhs, had asked Amritpal to surrender to the police and co-operate with their investigation.
Sikh groups in Canada held widespread protests against the government action in Punjab. Protests were also held outside the Indian High Commission in London, where demonstrators removed the Indian flag. India had strongly condemned the incident and summoned the UK’s deputy high commissioner in New Delhi to register its protest.
In San Francisco, pro-Khalistan supporters vandalised the Indian consulate, calling for Amritpal to be freed. — NNN-AGENCIES
