Indian police arrest Sikh separatist chief after lengthy hunt
Indian police on Sunday 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 tons of 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 spiritual chief, Jasbir Singh Rodde, stated Singh surrendered to police after providing morning prayers at a Sikh shrine in Moga. Police then arrested him 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 strain constructed by the police over the previous 35 days left Singh with no alternative,” Gill informed 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 shall be detained till he is delivered to courtroom to face expenses.
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 in opposition to 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 coated the Punjab insurgency within the Nineteen Eighties, stated: “The police took this man out, which is nice as a result of had they gone right into a gurdwara (Sikh shrine), and began capturing you’d have had a response from the overall populous. The Sikhs occur to be very delicate to gurdwaras being attacked.”
Sikhs are a non secular minority in India and say they’re discriminated in opposition to by the bulk Hindus.
Greater than 3,000 individuals had been killed by extremists through 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 30-year-old preacher, a fugitive and accused him and his aides of making discord within the state.
Police accused them of spreading disharmony amongst individuals, 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 practically 100 of his supporters.
Singh’s spouse was prevented from leaving India final week.
Little or no was identified about Singh till he arrived in Punjab state in 2022 and started main marches calling for the safety of rights for Sikhs, who account for about 1.7% 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 an extended, flowing beard. He additionally clothes like Bhindranwale.
Singh additionally heads Waris Punjab De, or Punjab’s Heirs, a corporation that was a part of an enormous marketing campaign to mobilize farmers in opposition to 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 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 change into more and more widespread amongst supporters of the Khalistan motion, which is banned in India.
Officers see it and affiliated teams as a nationwide safety risk. Despite the fact that the motion has waned over time, it nonetheless has some assist in Punjab and past — together with in nations like Canada, the US and the UK, that are residence to a large Sikh diaspora.
Final 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 in opposition to the transfer to arrest Singh.
India’s Overseas Ministry denounced the incident and summoned the U.Ok.’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 in the US.