India hunts Sikh preacher who has revived calls for homeland

Record ID: 1717142

  • Title: India hunts Sikh preacher who has revived calls for homeland
  • Date: 22nd March 2023
  • Summary: AMRITSAR, PUNJAB, INDIA (MARCH 21, 2023) (ANI - No use India) RELATIVE OF SIKH PREACHER WHO HAS REVIVED TALK OF AN INDEPENDENT SIKH HOMELAND, AMRITPAL SINGH, STANDING AT GATE READING (English): "A K F" (ANANDPUR KHALSA FAUJ) AT SINGH'S RESIDENCE/RELATIVE CLOSING GATE RELATIVES SEATED INSIDE RESIDENCE CLOSED GATE/PEOPLE STANDING OUTSIDE RESIDENCE AMRITSAR, PUNJAB, INDIA (MARCH 22, 2023) (ANI - No use India) POLICE PERSONNEL STANDING VARIOUS OF POLICE PERSONNEL ON GUARD CHANDIGARH, INDIA (MARCH 21, 2023) (ANI - No use India) (SOUNDBITE) (Hindi) PUNJAB INSPECTOR GENERAL OF POLICE, DR. SUKHCHAIN SINGH GILL, SAYING: "We have clarified many times that Amritpal (Singh) has not been arrested yet. Police are making all efforts to arrest him and we are hopeful that we will be able to arrest him soon." JALANDHAR, PUNJAB, INDIA (MARCH 22, 2023) (ANI - No use India) SINGH'S CAR SEIZED BY POLICE CAR NUMBER PLATE SIGN ON CAR READING (English): "VITARA BREZZA" VARIOUS OF SEIZED CAR EXTERIOR OF POLICE STATION SEIZED BIKE SINGH'S BIKE SEIZED BY POLICE SIGN OF GUN ON BIKE SIGN ON BIKE READING (English): "PLATINA" SEIZED BIKE BEAS, PUNJAB, INDIA (MARCH 19, 2023) (ANI - No use India) VARIOUS OF SECURITY PERSONNEL ON GUARD OUTSIDE COURT ACCUSED RELATED TO SINGH BEING TAKEN IN POLICE VEHICLE CHANDIGARH, INDIA (MARCH 21, 2023) (ANI - No use India) 19 (SOUNDBITE) (Hindi) PUNJAB INSPECTOR GENERAL OF POLICE DR. SUKHCHAIN SINGH GILL, SAYING: "See, till now 154 people have been taken into custody and 12 weapons, including two types of rifles, revolver have been recovered. Further investigation is underway." AMRITSAR, PUNJAB, INDIA (FILE-FEBRUARY 23, 2023) (ANI - No use India) VARIOUS OF SINGH ADDRESSING PROTESTERS PROTESTERS CHANTING WHILE ONE OF THEM HOLDS POSTER OF SINGH POLICE PERSONNEL AT PROTEST SITE
  • Embargoed: 5th April 2023 12:30
  • Keywords: Amritpal Singh Amritsar Golden Temple India Indira Gandhi Khalistan Punjab Sikh homeland bike car police preacher separatist leader violence
  • Location: AMRITSAR, BEAS, JALANDHAR, PUNJAB/ CHANDIGARH, INDIA
  • City: AMRITSAR, BEAS, JALANDHAR, PUNJAB/ CHANDIGARH, INDIA
  • Country: India
  • Topics: Asia / Pacific,Crime/Law/Justice
  • Reuters ID: LVA001I386O9B
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: Indian police have launched a hunt for a Sikh preacher who has revived talk of an independent Sikh homeland and stoked fears of a return to violence that killed tens of thousands of people in 1980s and early 1990s.
    Police in the northwestern state of Punjab, where Sikhs are in the majority, said they had arrested 154 supporters of the preacher, Amritpal Singh, 29, and seized 12 guns and 430 rounds of ammunition and other equipment.
    "We have clarified many times that Amritpal (Singh) has not been arrested yet. Police are making all efforts to arrest him and we are hopeful that we will be able to arrest him soon," said Punjab's top police officer Dr. Sukhchain Singh Gill on Tuesday (March 21).
    Police said they had stepped up their presence and suspended mobile internet services to prevent unrest.
    Police have accused Singh and his supporters of attempted murder, obstruction of law enforcement and creating disharmony and said he had been on the run since Saturday when officers tried to block his motorcade and arrest him.
    Singh had set up a militia called Anandpur Khalsa Fauj. Its logos were found on the gate of his house and on the rifles and bullet-proof jackets recovered there, said police.
    At a rally in September, Singh said in a speech that every drop of his blood was dedicated to "freedom for the community."
    "We all are still slaves ... We have to fight for freedom," Singh said in the home village of Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, the Sikh insurgent leader killed in a 1984 Indian army operation.
    Singh has said striving for a separate country, which Sikhs call Khalistan, was not anti-democratic and should not be taboo.
    Sikh militants complaining of unfair treatment on the part of the central government began agitating for a separate homeland in the 1970s.
    India's then prime minister, Indira Gandhi, sent the military into the Golden Temple, the holiest shrine for Sikhs, in 1984 to root out Bhindranwale and his supporters in a bloody episode that infuriated Sikhs around the world.
    A few months later, Gandhi was assassinated by her Sikh bodyguards at her home in Delhi.
    While the Sikh insurgency was suppressed in the 1990s, authorities have been wary of any revival of agitation, with a particular focus on small groups of Sikhs in Canada, Britain, the United States and Australia, who support the separatist demand and occasionally stage protests outside Indian embassies.
    The Indian foreign ministry has complained about the protests and sought better security for its missions.
    Media reported that Singh had spent a decade in Dubai working in his family's transport business before returning to India in September and taking over the leadership of a Sikh group Waris Punjab De, or heirs of Punjab.
    Singh had become popular through social media during drawn protests in 2020-21 by thousands of farmers from Punjab, many of them Sikh, against agricultural reforms.
    The Sikh insurgency of the 1980s and 1990s killed some 30,000 people. Sikh militants were blamed for the 1985 bombing of an Air India Boeing 747 flying from Canada to India in which all 329 people on board were killed.
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