Mann govt dismissive even as agencies raise red flag on Amritpal Singh

Chandigarh: Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann on Sunday dismissed the recent activities of newly emerged Sikh hardliner Amritpal Singh, saying it was “not as big an issue as it was made out to be” and that those raising slogans in their favour were “funded from Pakistan”.

It was the first time Mann broke his silence ever since Amritpal Singh rose to prominence in Punjab by raising a pitch for Khalistan - an old demand for a separate Sikh state- which kept the state to its hooks in the 80s.

Amritpal, who spent over a decade in Dubai, resurfaced last September when he took over “Waris Punjab De”, a pressure group controversial actor-activist Deep Sidhu created before his death in an accident in February 2022.

Last week, Amritpal created a sensation across the country when he along with his supporters laid siege at Ajnala police station near Amritsar to free his aide, accused of multiple charges.

“Khalistan sentiment will remain, you cannot suppress it, " he said in the latest interview.

As per a media report, Punjab Director General of Police Gaurav Yadav had ‘red-flagged’ the rise of Amritpal Singh in a presentation to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah in January this year.

However, Punjab CM’s Sunday statement that ‘Amritpal was not a big issue’ suggested a contrary stand, even as security agencies are wary of Amritpal’s Khalistan rhetoric and its fall out on the state’s peace and harmony.

Professor Manjit Singh, the former sociology teacher at Panjab University, Chandigarh and observer of Punjab issues, told Newsdrum that the Punjab government is competent to handle internal political extremism but they show reluctance for political reasons.

“They don’t want to take risks to annoy a certain section of Sikh voters. If the Punjab government is sincere in maintaining peace and harmony in the state it could do so but Mann prefers to focus on fighting the governor rather than Amritpal Singh,” he said.

Opposition parties in Punjab are also critical of the Mann government's handling of the issue.

BJP leader and former Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh said in a statement last week that Amritpal laid a siege on the Police Station was not only a complete collapse of the law and order situation in Punjab but it is more serious than that”

He said there was a particular pattern in these incidents, which does not bode well for national security. “Particularly when Pakistan is there to encourage and exploit such a situation”, he observed, while raising questions over the competence of the state government in dealing with such a situation.

The AAP government in Punjab completes one year next month on March 16. While it claimed to have fulfilled several pre-poll promises including free power, it has time and again come under pressure on the issue of law and order.

Observers see Amritpal as a new security challenge for the Mann government as his activities are getting more aggressive.

Amritpal recently said during his visit to Mohali on January 29, “If we had got independence in 1984 (peak of the separatist movement in the state), the condition of Punjab would not have been like India.”

In another statement, he is quoted as saying, “We lost our (Sikh) empire to the Britishers in 1849 and we are asking for that empire back.”

Congress' Ludhiana MP Ravneet Singh Bittu on Sunday claimed to have received a call threatening him with dire consequences if he did not stop speaking against Amritpal.

It is not clear yet who was the man behind threatening Bittu.

Asking why Amritpal has not been arrested yet, retired Punjab Director General of Police Shashi Kant said in an interview, “We are heading for tough times in Punjab. The radicals sitting abroad will get emboldened (with the rise of Amritpal) and start pumping more and more money into the hands of these radicals.”

He then added it was a deliberate attempt to disturb peace in Punjab. Those who have met him, talked to him and interviewed him, say apparently he was given a massive 'brush up/build up/indoctrination' in Dubai first.

Sociologist Manjit Singh told Newsdrum that one cannot imagine that Amritpal Singh could have gone whole hog in the Ajnala episode without the backing of big power players.

He said Amritpal is primarily a state security issue but if the union government and its agencies do not extend help and cooperation to the government of Punjab and if there is no coordination from Punjab security agencies as well, it would be an uphill task for the state to pacify the political extremism taking root.

Meanwhile, with the by-election for the Jalandhar parliamentary seat likely to be held soon, the issue around Amritpal would further get politicised. The Lok Sabha seat fell vacant after Congress MP Santok Singh Chaudhary died of a heart attack while participating in the Bharat Jodo Yatra.