E-Paper
Amritpal moves HC, seeks parole to attend Parliament winter session
Radical Sikh leader and Lok Sabha MP Amritpal Singh has moved the Punjab and Haryana high court seeking temporary release to attend the upcoming winter session of the Parliament
Chandigarh
Radical Sikh leader and Lok Sabha MP Amritpal Singh has moved the Punjab and Haryana high court seeking temporary release to attend the upcoming winter session of the Parliament.
Amritpal has been under detention at Dibrugarh jail in Assam since his arrest in April 2023 under the National Security Act (NSA) even as his nine other associates were brought back to Punjab earlier this year.
In the plea, he has sought directions to the Union and state authorities to permit his release on parole, or arrange his personal attendance in the Lok Sabha during the winter session. The session is to be held between December 1 and 19.
Amritpal has invoked Section 15 of the NSA, which empowers the competent authority to grant parole to a detainee in exceptional circumstances. In his plea, the radical leader has said that the Parliament is a constitutional body and being a member of the same and a representative of people from Khadoor Sahib, he be allowed to participate in the proceedings.
Amritpal, who styled himself after slain militant preacher Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, was arrested in Moga’s Rode village on April 23, 2023, after a month-long hunt.
The Khalistani sympathiser had escaped the police net in Jalandhar district on March 18, 2023, switching vehicles and changing appearances. The Punjab Police had launched the crackdown after the February 23, 2023, Ajnala incident in which Amritpal and his supporters, some of them brandishing swords and guns, allegedly broke through barricades and barged into the police station on the outskirts of Amritsar city, and clashed with police for the release of his aides. Before this, he was holding sessions with his sympathisers across Punjab.
The petition is yet to be listed for hearing.
