Punjab govt buckles before Khalistan backers, to release Amritpal Singh's aide from jail
Amritpal had issued a brazen warning to the Aam Aadmi Party government in Punjab to drop the case or face the consequences, and his supporters laid siege on a police station in Amritsar's Ajnala on Thursday.
FollowLaw and order sitution in Punjab is deteriorating. An indication of that comes as the Punjab Police gets ready to release an aide of Amritpal Singh, who openly advocates Khalistani ideology on Indian soil, following massive protests in Amritsar. Amritpal had issued a brazen warning to the Aam Aadmi Party government in Punjab to drop the case or face the consequences, and his supporters laid siege on a police station in Amritsar's Ajnala on Thursday. Armed with swords and guns, scores of supporters of Amritpal went on a rampage, even parading the Guru Granth Sahib during the protest.
Amritpal and his 30 supporters had been booked for allegedly kidnapping and thrashing Chamkaur Sahib resident Barinder Singh. In his complaint, Barinder told police that Amritpal's associates had abducted him from Ajnala and taken him to an unknown place where he was brutally thrashed. Before they reached Ajnala, Amritpal and his supporters protested at Dhilwan toll plaza after being stopped by police to march towards Amritsar. But the police later allowed them to continue with their march towards the Ajnala police station. Their protest caused a traffic jam on the Amritsar-Delhi national highway for some time.
Following this, the Punjab government buckled before the Khalistani ideologue and decided to release the aide. This action triggered a political backlash from the BJP. BJP leader Manjinder Singh Sirsa, while sharing the video of the rampage by Amritpal's supporters, said that AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal is applying Congress Model of the 1980s in Punjab. 'He (Kejriwal) is fanning communal violence just like Indira Gandhi and trying to create a separatist image of Sikhs. Today’s violence is a part of this designed modus operandi of the AAP,' Sirsa said.
Former Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh on Thursday said the Ajnala incident posed more serious issues than just the complete collapse of law and order in Punjab. 'There was a particular pattern in these incidents, which does not bode well for national security. This particularly when Pakistan is there to encourage and exploit such a situation,' he said.
Calling for evil to be nipped in the bud, Punjab Congress chief Amrinder Singh Raja Warring said that people had not elected the Aam Aadmi Party government to push the state back to the dark days of violence. Slamming Amritpal, Warring said that he did not have to carry the Guru Granth Sahib to the police station to fight the cops there.
