The Indian Punjab authorities, which is below strain from New Delhi, is transferring Amritpal Singh, probably the most outstanding Khalistan supporter, to a jail within the northeastern state of Assam to forestall any jailbreak or violent rescue makes an attempt.
The brand new jail is 2,500 km from Singh’s state Punjab.
Indian officers worry that holding Singh in any jail in Punjab or Haryana may show disastrous for the legislation and order state of affairs within the semi-restless state, the place years of atrocities by the Sikh group have fueled anti-government sentiment. Is boiling. Operation Blue Star in 1884 strengthened the Khalistan motion.
The goal of the motion is to create a homeland for the Sikhs by establishing an ethno-religious sovereign state referred to as Khalistan within the Punjab area.
Singh, who heads a corporation referred to as Waris Punjab De (Heirs of Punjab), has been detained below India’s notorious Nationwide Safety Act (NSA).
indian police Arrested Months of searches adopted, which sparked protests and vandalism amongst expatriate Indians in Britain, Canada and the US.
Singh rose to prominence within the northern state of Punjab for calling for a separate Sikh homeland referred to as Khalistan, the wrestle for which sparked lethal violence in opposition to Sikhs within the 1980s and 1990s.
Singh, 30, types himself on Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, a figurehead of the Khalistan motion when the Indian Military stormed the Golden Temple in Amritsar, a key Sikh web site, in 1984.
Generally known as Operation Blue Star, it was a army offensive in opposition to Sikhs on the Golden Temple wherein an estimated 1,000 individuals had been killed.
Later that yr, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated by her personal Sikh bodyguards, triggering one other wave of reprisals wherein some 3,000 Sikhs had been killed.
Amritpal Singh wears a equally styled blue turban and reportedly went to the previous Soviet republic of Georgia final yr for beauty surgical procedure to appear to be his hero.
The authorities have additionally saved round 9 followers of Singh in Dibrugarh jail, the place they’ve been saved in isolation.
Singh and his associates have been saved in separate cells to keep away from the potential for radicalizing different inmates within the jail and linking them with the Anandpur Khalsa Fauj (AKF), a militant group.
In response to The Hindu, the 1980 Act via govt orders permits authorities to detain Singh for one yr, which will be prolonged. Singh, needed in at the very least six different felony instances, was detained below the NSA.
The NSA has a provision to switch a detainee “from one place of detention to a different place, inside the identical State or to some other State” by an order of the suitable authorities. The publication additionally quoted an official as saying that courtroom permission can be wanted to arrest Singh in some other felony case.
The potential for legislation and order state of affairs in Punjab can’t be dominated out had Singh been saved within the state jail. They may have instigated different inmates and deliberate to interrupt the jail,” The Hindu quoted the official as saying.
“There are teams in Punjab funded by worldwide separatist organizations which may set up protests of their assist exterior the jail premises,” the official mentioned.
Singh was hiding in Punjab and adjoining areas since March 18, 2023.
In response to media reviews, the companies had been on the goal of Singh since final yr; Nevertheless, he got here out on 23 February after main a protest exterior a police station in Ajnala, Punjab, demanding the discharge of a Sikh activist illegally detained by the police.
Police mentioned they arrested Singh round 6:45 a.m. (0115 GMT) on 23 April, cordoning off a village following intelligence that he was at a gurdwara, or Sikh temple, there.
“As soon as they obtained the message that they’d no solution to escape and had been surrounded, they had been arrested,” senior police officer Sukhchain Singh Gill informed reporters.
Media reported that the protesters used a duplicate of the Guru Granth Sahib, the holy scripture of the Sikhs, to forestall the police from resorting to violence.