Two weeks on, Amritpal continues to dodge police - Hindustan Times
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Two weeks on, Amritpal continues to dodge police

Apr 02, 2023 01:20 AM IST

Two weeks after he gave police the slip, pro-Khalistan leader Amritpal Singh continues to dodge the cops even as senior officials claim that they are close to nabbing the ‘Waris Punjab De’ chief

Chandigarh/Jalandhar : Two weeks after he gave police the slip, pro-Khalistan leader Amritpal Singh continues to dodge the cops even as senior officials claim that they are close to nabbing the ‘Waris Punjab De’ chief.

Two weeks after he gave police the slip, pro-Khalistan leader Amritpal Singh continues to dodge the cops even as senior officials claim that they are close to nabbing the ‘Waris Punjab De’ chief.
Two weeks after he gave police the slip, pro-Khalistan leader Amritpal Singh continues to dodge the cops even as senior officials claim that they are close to nabbing the ‘Waris Punjab De’ chief.

Amritpal escaped on March 18 from Mehatpur town of Jalandhar district after police launched a crackdown against him and his supporters.

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Even after locating Amritpal at Marnaian Kalan village of Hoshiarpur district on March 28 from where he managed to dodge the police party chasing him, cops are clueless about his whereabouts.

It is learnt that in the wee hours of Saturday, police conducted a search at a secluded sugar mill in Dasuya in Hoshiarpur and other places in Garhshankar but returned empty handed.

Police believe that Amritpal and his aide Papalpreet, who is also on the run, might be hiding in one of the Sikh deras in the Doaba region of the state.

Meanwhile, questions are being raised why the counter-intelligence wing team chasing Amritpal at Marnaian Kalan village didn’t inform the district police. “District police was asked to nab Amritpal around one hour after he fled from a gurdwara near Marnaian Kalan on March 28. A vehicle of the counter-intelligence wing reached the gurdwara 10 minutes after the radical leader had fled along with Papalpreet and three others,” a police official of Hoshiarpur district said.

Questions are also being raised over planning of the police in nabbing Amritpal at Mehatpur town of Jalandhar district on March 18 from where he managed to give police the slip and reached Shahbad of Kurukshetra of Haryana on March 20.

Since then, the Punjab Police have conducted multiple raids on deras situated in Kapurthala, Hoshiarpur and Jalandhar districts but without any success.

A senior police official involved in the probe said they are hopeful that they will nab Amritpal soon, especially after he released two videos and an audio clip.

“Amritpal has appeared on social media in a few videos and if he continues to do so, he is most likely to leave some clue about his whereabouts,” an official privy to the investigation said.

“We are on our toes for the past two weeks. One of the deras in Jalandhar lied to the investigators about Amritpal’s one-day stay there when he returned to Punjab on March 28. We will take action against the dera management,” said an official.

From the course of investigation in past two weeks, it appears that the police successfully managed to follow Amritpal and Papalpreet till March 21 before they lost track of his movement. After six days, police tracked the radical leader’s location to Punjab following which a massive operation was launched again, said an official.

The police now have a bigger challenge as both Amritpal and Papalpreet have separated and are no longer travelling together.

DIG Jalandhar range Swapan Sharma said the investigation is still on. “We are carrying out searches in different parts of the state and are hopeful of positive results,” he said.

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  • ABOUT THE AUTHOR
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    Ravinder Vasudeva is a principal correspondent who writes for the Punjab bureau of Hindustan Times.

  • ABOUT THE AUTHOR
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    Navrajdeep Singh is a senior staff correspondent. He covers agriculture, crime, local bodies, health and education in the Patiala district of Punjab.

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