For over a month, Khalistan fugitive Amritpal Singh evaded Punjab Police and its Intelligence apparatus, managing to hoodwink them every time they claimed to be on the verge of trapping him.
With the radical preacher shifting ‘hideouts’ across at least four states in 35 days, questions are now being raised over the police failure to track him down early on.
Worse for the police, Amritpal managed to sneak into Gurdwara Sant Khalsa in Rode village of Moga district hours before the cops could lay siege and force his surrender. Intriguingly, the police had maintained that it had thrown a wide network of informants in Rode — the native village of Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale — suspecting that Amritpal could try and hide there.
However, none of the attempts by the police seem to have paid off. Though police maintained that they got a tip-off that Amritpal was hiding in the gurdwara, sources indicated that it was only after he had started addressing a gathering and made a speech which was broadcast through public address system that the police were alerted.
All through the 35 days that he was on the run, Amritpal criss-crossed various states, including Haryana, Delhi, Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh, releasing as many as three videos even as the cops continued to look for him.
Apart from a slew of CCTV footages released by the Punjab Police, there was not enough hard Intelligence that could have zeroed down on Amritpal’s exact location. Senior police officials, however, maintain that it was the pressure built up by the Punjab Police that forced the Khalistani sympathiser to eventually return and give himself up.
“It is the end result which matters. So his arrest should be seen on a positive note. He has remained a fugitive but law does catch up with such people,” said SS Virk, former DGP of Punjab.
Speaking about the videos that were being released, Virk said police continued their efforts because of which Amritpal had to surrender. “It is our job to be after fugitives and it is the end result that matters so it should not be seen as a failure in any way,” said Virk.
The cops will now try to question Amritpal on the exact places where he managed to hide. “What will also be of interest to Intelligence agencies will be who all had provided shelter to him, particularly in states other than Punjab. The identity of those who helped Amritpal during his days on the run would be essential to understand the network that helped him," said a senior police officer.
What has also added to the embarrassment of the cops are reports that it was the intervention of former Akal Takht Jathedar Jasbir Singh Rode which helped facilitate the surrender of Amritpal.
Rode had visited Amritpal’s family at Jallupur Khera in Amritsar on Saturday as head of the Akal Takht-nominated panel entrusted with the task of coordinating with the families of youths detained by the police. Earlier also, at Takht Damdama Sahib on Baisakhi, Akal Takht officiating Jathedar Giani Harpreet Singh had appealed to Amritpal to surrender. Rode, however, claimed Amritpal had “surrendered” on his own and denied any role in persuading him to do so.
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