Amritpal Singh leaves the house of Baljeet Kaur in Haryana
New Delhi:
Khalistani leader Amritpal Singh was seen on CCTV camera leaving the home of a woman in Haryana who had sheltered him while he was fleeing from the police on Monday. The footage shows the wanted Khalistani leader, carrying an umbrella to hide his face, leaving the house in a white shirt and dark blue jeans.
Baljeet Kaur, the woman who sheltered Amritpal Singh and his aide Papalpreet Singh at her house in Haryana’s Kurukshetra, has been arrested, the police said.
The timestamp on the footage shows Monday, two days after the police moved in to arrest him in Punjab. He has been on the run since then.
“We have arrested the woman, Baljeet Kaur, who sheltered Amritpal and his aide Papalpreet Singh at her home in Shahabad on Sunday. She has been handed over to the Punjab Police,” Kurukshetra police chief Police Singh Bhoria said.
Amritpal Singh had changed five vehicles in 12 hours to escape arrest on Saturday. The Khalistani leader’s aide, Papalpreet Singh, has been with him since that day and both have been seen together in other CCTV footage.
Amritpal Singh leads “Waris Punjab De”, a radical organisation started by actor and activist Deep Sidhu, who died in a road accident in February last year.
He is linked to a massive protest on February 23 against the arrest of his key aide and kidnapping accused, Lovepreet Singh. Six policemen were injured during the clash.
Intelligence operatives have, however, told NDTV that Amritpal Singh has been carrying out a wide range of “illegal activities”, from sourcing weapons from Pakistan through its spy agency Inter-Services Intelligence to attempts to divide Punjab on communal lines.
Amritpal Singh claims to be a follower of the Khalistani separatist and terrorist Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, and his supporters call him “Bhindranwale 2.0.”
