E-Paper
Amritpal Singh still on run, Punjab cops outside his home; 'close aide' arrested: Top updates
While radical preacher Amritpal Singh is yet to be arrested, a total of 78 people have been nabbed so far and further searches and raids are underway, the Punjab Police said.
The Punjab Police has launched a massive manhunt to arrest radical Sikh preacher and Khalistan sympathiser Amritpal Singh - who is on the run since Saturday - and declared him a “fugitive”.
"He is now a fugitive and we are looking for him and we will soon arrest him," Jalandhar Police Commissioner Kuldeep Singh Chahal told reporters near Nakodar in Jalandhar late Saturday night.
A total of 78 people have been arrested so far and further searches and raids are underway, the Punjab Police said. Security has been tightened at many places in Punjab with intensive vehicle checking.
Top updates on Punjab Police crackdown on Amritpal Singh:
1. Kuldeep Singh Chahal said six to seven gunmen of Amritpal Singh have been arrested. Senior police officials accompanied by Punjab police personnel and companies of para-military forces conducted search operations in villages in Nakodar and Shahkot areas. Even the roads leading to Moga and Muktsar from Nakodar were completely sealed as no vehicles were allowed to move ahead without adequate checking.
Also Read | ‘Drugs in every Punjab home’: Father defends Amritpal Singh amid police crackdown
2. Daljeet Singh Kalsi alias Sarabjeet Singh Kalsi, who is an alleged advisor and financer of Amritpal Singh, has been arrested by the authorities, news agency ANI reported.
3. Police personnel have also been deployed outside Amritpal Singh's residence in Jallupur Khera village in Amritsar.
4. His two cars were seized. “We also checked if the firearms of his security escorts had been procured legally. A case has been registered,” Chahal told news agency ANI.
5. Amritpal Singh's father, however, claimed that Punjab Police conducted searches at his residence in Amritsar but did not find "anything illegal".
6. On Saturday, the Punjab government had launched a major crackdown against Amritpal.
7. The elusive preacher himself, however, gave the police a slip and escaped their dragnet when his cavalcade was intercepted in Jalandhar district. As the operation went underway, authorities stepped up security at several places and suspended internet and SMS services in the state till Sunday noon.
8. During their state-wide operation, police seized one .315 bore rifle, seven 12 bore rifles, one revolver, and 373 live cartridges of different caliber, the police said.
9. Officials in central intelligence agencies said on Saturday that Amritpal is an “ISI agent” who was brought to India by the Pakistani spy agency to spread violence over the Khalistan secessionist movement.
10. Dubai-returned Amritpal Singh was last year anointed the head of 'Waris Punjab De', which was founded by actor and activist Deep Sidhu who died in a road accident in February last year.
