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Ajnala attackers challenged India’s sovereignty, says HC; junks bail pleas
In February 2023, Amritpal and his associates were booked under various charges for allegedly attacking the Ajnala police station to get one of his aides released from the cops’ custody.
The Punjab and Haryana high court has said that the February 2023 attack by Amritpal Singh and his supporters at Ajnala police station was a ‘show of strength’ by them and demonstrated that the mobsters considered themselves above the ‘rule of law’, and threw a challenge to the sovereignty and integrity of the country.
“Besides this, they also exhibited their future intentions to take law into their own hands, just to achieve their own sense of justice, if they dis-concur with any act of government authority(ies) established under law,” the high court bench of justice Surya Partap Singh observed while dismissing bail pleas from several supporters and aides of radical Sikh leader, Amritpal Singh, filed in connection with the FIR registered into the incident. Petitioners include Gurmeet Singh Gill alias Gurmeet Singh Bhukkanwala, Gurbhej Singh, and Kulwant Singh.
In February 2023, Amritpal and his associates were booked under various charges for allegedly attacking the Ajnala police station to get one of his aides released from the cops’ custody.
Six cops were injured in the clash. A month later, on March 18, police began a crackdown against Amritpal and his aides. Later on April 23, Amritpal was also detained in Moga and has remained in preventive custody since then. An Amritsar court on July 29 framed charges against as many as 40 persons, including nine Amritpal aides.
The court said that petitioners had not only threatened the rule of law and authority of the state but also challenged the “majesty of the sovereign country”.
“Thus, the usual parameters that are adopted for the consideration of a bail petition for a person accused of committing an offence cannot be made applicable to the present case by default. The rule of prudence prescribes that extraordinary measures are supposed to be taken in extraordinary condition and the situation so created by the mob was such that by any parameter it could not have been treated to be a normal/ordinary law and order issue,” the court said.
The court observed that the incident had shocked the “conscience of the entire nation”, where an unlawful mob, under the “influence” of Amritpal Singh, took the law into their own hands by attacking a police station, with an ill intention to get one of their associates released from police custody, instead of taking legal recourse.
It further noted that the surge in violent incidents, especially against the state functionaries, by mobs, pose threat, not only to the social fabric of the society, but also to the law enforcement agencies. Hence, the court finds no merit in the petitions. “Moreover, since the material placed before this court, brings to full glare the antagonist state of affairs prevailing in the state of Punjab, this court cannot abdicate its constitutional role and turn a blind eye to the suffering of the common man. It will be a travesty of justice, if despite grave allegations, the petitioner (s) is enlarged on bail,” the court recorded in an apparent reference to evidence collected by investigating agency, especially the videos.
The court has also dismissed a plea from Bhukkanwala, who had claimed that he was not physically present at Ajnala. Hence, he should be discharged in this case.
