'Waris Punjab De' Chief Amritpal Singh To Fight Lok Sabha Elections From Punjab, Says Lawyer
Amritpal Singh is currently lodged in a jail in Assam under the National Security Act.
Radical Sikh preacher and Waris Punjab De chief Amritpal Singh is set to fight the Lok Sabha elections from Punjab's Khadoor Sahib seat as an independent candidate, his counsel claimed on Wednesday, as reported by news agency PTI. Singh is currently lodged in a jail in Assam under the National Security Act. However, his father, Tarsem Singh, said that he would comment on the matter only after meeting his son on Thursday.
Singh's father asserted that Amritpal had earlier not shown any interest in joining politics. According to PTI, Amritpal Singh's legal counsel, Rajdev Singh Khalsa, claimed that he met the preacher in Dibrugarh jail on Wednesday and requested him to contest the polls. "I met bhai sahab (Amritpal Singh) in Dibrugarh central jail today, and during the meeting, I requested bhai sahab that, in the interests of 'Khalsa Panth', he should fight elections this time from Khadoor Sahib to become a member of parliament," Rajdev Singh Khalsa said, as quoted by PTI. "Bhai sahab accepted my request in the Panthic interests... He will fight as an Independent candidate," Khalsa said.
Amritpal Singh was arrested in April last year and the stringent NSA was invoked against him. He along with nine of his associates is currently lodged in Dibrugarh jail. Singh was arrested in Moga's Rode village on April 23 last year following a more than one-month-long manhunt. The Khalistan sympathiser had escaped the police net in Jalandhar district in March last year, switching vehicles and changing appearances.
Last year, the Punjab Police launched the crackdown after the February 23 Ajnala incident in which Amritpal Singh and his supporters, some of them brandishing swords and guns, broke through barricades and barged into the police station on the outskirts of Amritsar city, and clashed with police for the release of Lovepreet Singh Toofan, one of his aides. He and his associates had been booked under several criminal cases related to spreading disharmony among classes, attempts to murder, attacks on police personnel, and creating obstructions in the lawful discharge of duty by public servants, as reported by PTI.
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