Chandigarh: Radical preacher Amritpal Singh’s seven associates were on Friday produced before a court in Amritsar’s Ajnala which remanded them to police custody till March 25.
Amritpal’s seven associates were released from Dibrugarh Central Jail in Assam and re-arrested in another case by the Punjab Police.
All seven detainees were produced before court in Ajnala under tight security, officials said. The Punjab government had decided not to reinvoke the NSA at the end of the detention period of Amritpal’s seven associates.
The Punjab Police re-arrested them in connection with an attack on a police station on the outskirts of Amritsar in 2023 and got a transit remand from a local court in Dibrugarh.
The seven associates will face the law in the 2023 Ajnala police station attack incident as they will be formally arrested in this case, Director General of Police (DGP) Gaurav Yadav had said on Sunday.
Punjab Police had secured their transit remand and after completing the legal transfer process from Dibrugarh Central they were brought to Ajnala.
A 25-member Punjab Police team had been camping in Dibrugarh for the past few days to facilitate the transfer of Singh’s accomplices, who have been imprisoned along with the Waris Punjab De (WPD) leader in Dibrugarh for nearly two years.
The seven brought back are Basant Singh of Daulatpura Ucha in Moga, Bhagwant Singh alias Pradhan Mantri Bajeke of village Bajeke in Moga, Gurmeet Singh Gill alias Gurmeet Bukkanwala of village Bukkanwala in Moga, Sarabjeet Singh Kalsi alias Daljeet Singh Kalsi of West Punjabi Bagh in New Delhi, Gurinderpal Singh Aujla alias Guri Aujla of Phagwara, Harjeet Singh alias Chacha of village Jallupur Khera in Amritsar and Kulwant Singh Dhaliwal alias Kulwant Singh of Rauke Kalan in Moga.
All of them were released from Dibrugarh Central Jail in batches during the last few days as their detention period in the National Security Act (NSA) expired.
Amritpal Singh, the chief of the ‘Waris Punjab De’ outfit, and his nine associates have been in Assam’s Dibrugarh jail under the NSA for the past two years.
He had fought the 2024 Lok Sabha polls as an independent and won from the Khadoor Sahib seat.
Amritpal Singh, who styled himself after slain Khalistani militant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, was arrested in
Moga’s Rode village on April 23, 2023 following an over a month-long manhunt. The Khalistan sympathiser had escaped the police net in Jalandhar district on March 18, 2023 switching vehicles and changing appearances.
The Punjab Police had launched the crackdown after the February 23, 2023 Ajnala incident in which Amritpal Singh and his supporters, some of them brandishing swords and guns, allegedly broke through barricades and barged into the police station on the outskirts of Amritsar city, and clashed with police for the release of his aides.
He and his associates were booked on charges of spreading disharmony among classes, attempt to murder, attack on police personnel and creating obstructions in the lawful discharge of duty by public servants.
