Row erupts after stir, release of pro-Khalistan leader’s aide

AMRITSAR: The unprecedented storming of a police station in Punjab’s Ajnala town by supporters of radical Sikh leader Amritpal Singh sparked a political controversy on Friday.

Both the ruling and opposition parties condemned the violent protests by Amritpal’s followers on Thursday, which only ended after the police assured Singh that a key aide – imprisoned in an abduction-and-assault case – will be set free. The aide, Lovepreet Singh, along with 30 other supporters of Amritpal, were booked in a first information report (FIR) for the alleged abduction and beating of another Sikh preacher.

The Congress said that this incident marked the collapse of law and order in the state but the ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) defended the police response and said the Opposition was misleading the people.

Cabinet minister and AAP leader Aman Arora termed the attack on the police station as shameful. “If someone felt that the FIR has been registered wrongly, the police or the government could have been requested for investigation. They could have made a request to the court. Running riot like this is not justified.”

The Opposition expressed serious concern. “While Punjab chief minister Bhagwant Mann was holding an investment summit in Mohali to woo the investors from across the globe, the police had to run for shelter in another part of the state to rescue themselves from a group of people who were seeking release of a person locked up in police custody,” said leader of opposition in the assembly, Partap Singh Bajwa.

His party colleague, Punjab Congress chief Amarinder Singh Raja Warring, denounced the violence and condemned the protesters for taking the Sikh holy book to the police station. “What we are seeing today is reminiscent of the past which every Punjabi is scared of,” he added, in an apparent reference to the violent “Khalistan” agitation in the 1980s.

BJP leader and former chief minister Capt Amarinder Singh said the Ajnala incident was more than a law and order collapse. “This is not only a complete collapse of the law and order situation in Punjab, it is more serious than that,” he added. He said the incident had serious security implications for the state and the country, and warned there was a particular pattern. “Particularly when Pakistan is there to encourage and exploit such a situation,” he said, as he questioned the competence of the state government in dealing with such a situation.

Singh also questioned the motive behind carrying the Guru Granth Sahib to the protest site, which, he termed unacceptable.

The government defended itself. Accusing the Opposition of running a slanderous campaign and misleading people, cabinet minister Kuldeep Singh Dhaliwal said that no one would be allowed to disturb the hard-earned peace of Punjab and all anti-social elements would be dealt with iron hand. ‘Waris Punjab De’ head Amritpal Singh and 30 of his supporters were booked on February 17 for allegedly kidnapping and thrashing Varinder Singh, a resident of Rupnagar. Varinder, in his complaint, said that Amritpal's associates abducted him and took him to an unknown place where he was brutally thrashed for social media posts against Amritpal and his associates