India: a Sikh separatist leader on the run for a month arrested

April 23, 2023

Amritpal Singh, a separatist Sikh preacher on the run for a month and who was the subject of an intense manhunt in India, has finally been arrested, police said on Sunday.

He was “arrested in Moga, Punjab”, said the police of this state in northwestern India, calling on “citizens to maintain peace and harmony”, and not to spread fake news.

According to local media, the fugitive turned himself in to the police.

Amritpal Singh, 30, has made a name for himself in recent months by preaching radical Sikhism, going so far as to demand the creation of a Sikh state called Khalistan.

The Sikh leader and his followers, all armed with swords, knives and firearms, stormed a police station in February after one of Singh’s aides was arrested for assault and attempted robbery. alleged kidnapping.

The attack in broad daylight in the suburbs of Amritsar, the city which houses the holiest of Sikh temples, the Golden Temple, left several police officers injured. Amritpal Singh had fled on March 18, triggering a massive manhunt.

More than a hundred of his supporters had been arrested, and the entire state of Punjab, which has 30 million inhabitants, 58% of whom are Sikhs, had been deprived of mobile internet for several days.

That didn’t stop the preacher from taunting authorities in a video posted to social media in late March. Seen in Delhi, he described the police operation as an “attack on the Sikh community”.

“I’ve never been afraid of being arrested and I’m not today. My morale is good. No one can hurt me. It’s God’s will,” he said.

This hunt had even reacted internationally. His supporters staged demonstrations of support outside Indian consulates in the UK, Canada and the US.

The state of Punjab, where 58% Sikhs and 39% Hindus live, experienced violent separatist movements in favor of Khalistan in the 1980s and early 1990s, which left thousands dead.

The violence peaked in 1984 after an army assault on separatists at the Golden Temple, which left at least 400 people dead, including the radical leader of the place, Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale.