Chandigarh/AMRITSAR: Punjab Police stepped up their manhunt for Waris Punjab De chief Amritpal Singh nearly 48 hours after he appeared to have given them the slip once again, being spotted in a Hoshiarpur village on Tuesday evening before going untraceable.
Meanwhile, a day after Amritpal issued a video message breaking his silence over the crackdown on him and his aides, a purported audio message of his surfaced on social media on Thursday. In the audio message, Amritpal can be heard asking the Akal Takht acting jathedar Giani Harpreet Singh to call a Sarbat Khalsa (Sikh congregation) to prove that he (the jathedar) is the head of the community. Hours later, a second video was widely shared on Facebook in which the radical leader can be seen repeating what he said in the audio clip. HT could not independently verify the authenticity of the audio and the video clip.
“Some are saying that the video was shot by police in custody. There are allegations that the cops have made me say things on the video, and this is not my style of speaking. I want to make it clear that I am not in custody. I am not habitual to making videos or facing the camera, and the second thing is that on the day the video was shot my health was not good,” Amritpal said and rubbished reports that he had set conditions for his surrender.
“I have raised no demand before the police, as some reports are saying. I did not say anything about it. I have not put any conditions. I urged the jathedar to call a Sarbat Khalsa to prove he was the head of the community. There should be no politics in this, as it is the time for our qaum (community) to unite,” he said in the messages.
{{/usCountry}}“I have raised no demand before the police, as some reports are saying. I did not say anything about it. I have not put any conditions. I urged the jathedar to call a Sarbat Khalsa to prove he was the head of the community. There should be no politics in this, as it is the time for our qaum (community) to unite,” he said in the messages.
{{/usCountry}}Special teams have also been sent to Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, taking into account the possibility that the pro-Khalistan leader could have slipped out of Punjab. According to officials involved in the search operation, Amritpal was travelling from Hoshiarpur to Phagwara on Tuesday when the location of a mobile number temporarily used by him was tapped by police.
A police team chased Amritpal’s vehicle but he managed to dodge them, driving towards Marnaiyan Kalan village and abandoning the car at a dead end, officials said. Amritpal, who was travelling with his associate Papalpreet Singh and one other person, disappeared after crossing the wall of a gurdwara, a police officer involved in the hunt said.
Officials involved in the probe said the video clip that surfaced on Wednesday was uploaded on social media from a UK-based IP address. Police did not comment on the matter on the record.
Queries to DIG Jalandhar Swapan Sharma, SSP Amritsar Rural Satinder Singh and SSP Jalandhar Rural Mukhwinder Bhullar went unanswered.