Amritpal Singh was in Haryana’s Kurushetra a day after fleeing (File)
New Delhi:
Radical Sikh preacher Amritpal Singh, who is still on the run, may be headed to Delhi after his last location was traced to neighbouring Haryana, sources have said.
Sources say the police have stepped up vigil across the national capital after Amritpal sneaked out of Punjab and was last spotted in Haryana.
An alert has been issued in Dehradun, Haridwar, and Udham Singh Nagar districts of Uttarakhand as well as in view of the possibility of ‘Waris Punjab De’ chief Amritpal Singh entering the state.
Officials yesterday said Amritpal Singh was in Haryana’s Kurushetra a day after fleeing the police in Punjab. A woman who sheltered him and his associate Papalpreet Singh at her home at Shahabad on Sunday has been arrested.
A video that surfaced yesterday shows the wanted separatist carrying an umbrella to hide his face, leaving the shahabad house of Baljeet Kaur in a white shirt and dark blue jeans. The timestamp on the footage shows Monday.
The Punjab police have also arrested a man who was allegedly part of the private security setup of Amritpal Singh.
Tejinder Singh Gill, a resident of Mangewal village in the Khanna area of Ludhiana district, was tasked with the self-styled preacher’s security.
The massive crackdown against Amritpal Singh comes a month after the separatist and his supporters broke into a police station with swords and guns for the release of one of his aides. Six policemen were injured in the clash.
Amritpal Singh, however, gave the police a slip when his cavalcade was intercepted in the Jalandhar district on Saturday. He has been on the run since.
The ‘top secret’ action was a coordinated effort between Aam Aadmi Party-ruled Punjab, the Centre, and BJP-governed Assam, say officials. Sources say Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann had discussed the plan to arrest Amritpal Singh with Home Minister Amit Shah in a meeting on March 2.
Home Ministry sources said Amritpal singh was planning to launch a statewide procession to baptize the youth to carry out suicide attacks. The radical preacher was using de-addiction centres to stockpile weapons illegally sourced from Pakistan, they said.
Seven of his top arrested aides have been flown to Dibrugarh in upper Assam. They are being kept in the high-security Dibrugarh Central Jail.
