As Radical Preacher Amritpal Singh Lands In Police Net, A Brief History Of Khalistan Movement

Amritpal Singh Arrest: With the arrest of fugitive radical preacher Amritpal Singh, here is a look at the history of the Khalistan movement, an ideology that goes back many decades.

New Delhi: After a month-long cat-and-mouse chase, the Punjab Police arrested fugitive radical preacher Amritpal Singh in Moga on Sunday. While Singh may be the most prominent face of the Khalistan movement in the present day, the ideology goes back many decades.

The self-styled leader, who, not too long ago was in Dubai, working in a transport firm, openly renewed the call for a separate Sikh homeland — Khalistan — and in doing so raised a bogey that many believed had been consigned to its grave in the unsparing but relatively bloodless police crackdown on separatists in 1986, code-named ‘Operation Black Thunder’.

Born and raised in Jallupur Khera in the Amritsar district, Amritpal went from his turban-less days in Dubai to growing his beard long and styling himself after the original mascot of the Khalistan movement — Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale.

He then tried to go about reviving the Sikh separatist movement in Punjab — from rallying his minions to the cause to allegedly sourcing weapons from across the border, in Pakistan.

In February this year, Amritpal, who by then had already given the call for a fresh armed struggle for Khalistan, kicked down police barricades along with his followers and laid siege to the Ajnala police station in Amritsar, forcing the release of his close aide and a fellow member of his radical outfit, ‘Waris Punjab De’, Lovepreet Toofan, who had been arrested in connection with an abduction case.

With its image severely dented and its functional authority being called into question in the wake of the Ajnala incident, the Punjab Police on March 13 launched a crackdown on Amritpal and his outfit.

While the police, according to news agency PTI, claimed to have taken 353 persons into preventive custody and picked up several more for questioning as part of its crackdown on ‘Waris Punjab De’, the radical preacher, who was declared ‘absconding’ after the launch of the police action, continued to remain at large all this while.

While there were multiple reports of him changing hideouts and appearance to escape the police dragnet, the Punjab Police at a press briefing advised caution against ‘fake news’, adding that they were moving mountains to get their hands on the wanted radical at the earliest.

According to an ANI report, a few weeks before his arrest, a video surfaced in which Amritpal purportedly exhorted all Sikhs to gather in good numbers on Baisakhi and discuss issues affecting the community.

In the video, the veracity of which couldn’t be ascertained by the news agency, the radical preacher purportedly claimed that he wasn’t in hiding and would appear before the world very soon.

Earlier this month, April 10 to be precise, Papalpreet Singh, a close aide of Amritpal, was nabbed from the Kathuanangal area of Amritsar, in what the police called a “big catch”.

According to reports, Papalpreet, who is believed to have groomed and mentored Amritpal, had allegedly been in touch with Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). He was booked under the stringent National Security Act (NSA).

Coming on the heels of Papalpreet’s arrest, Joga Singh, another aide of the radical preacher who allegedly provided him shelter and even facilitated his escape, was arrested too.

Further, according to ANI, Amritpal’s two more aides were apprehended. They were identified as Gurjant Singh and Nisha, both members of ‘Waris Punjab De’.

The arrest of Amritpal comes days after his wife Kirandeep Kaur was stopped by the Punjab Police at Shri Guru Ram Dass International Airport, Amritsar, as she was about to board a flight to London. 

A Brief History Of The Khalistan Movement

The Khalistan movement, which is a fight for a separate and sovereign Sikh state, can be traced back to India’s independence and the subsequent partition, which left the Sikhs discontent, after having lost their land to Pakistan and suffered the mass exodus of immigrants.

Origin Of The Khalistan Movement

The political struggle for greater autonomy began with the Punjabi Suba Movement, which sought to reorganise Punjab along linguistic lines.

Though initially rejected, after years of protest, the state of Punjab was reorganised in 1966, resulting in the formation of Hindi-speaking Hindu-majority Himachal Pradesh and Haryana, and Punjabi-speaking Sikh-majority Punjab.

The Punjabi Suba Movement had galvanised the Akali Dal Movement, also known as the Gurdwara Reform Movement, that went on to become a major force in the new Sikh-majority Punjab. 

What Was The Anandpur Sahib Resolution?

Although the Akali Dal gave the Congress a tough fight in the assembly elections of 1967 and 1969, after the grand old party’s victory in the Lok Sabha elections in 1972 the Akali Dal met at the town of Anandpur Sahib in 1973 and passed a resolution. The Anandpur Sahib Resolution not only demanded autonomy for the state of Punjab but also sought the right to frame its own internal constitution.

Who Was Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale? 

During their fight, as reported during the time, many in Punjab sought to go beyond the demand of just political autonomy and advocated the return to orthodox Sikhism. One such leader was Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale. He found his audience in the Punjabi youth, especially those in the lower rungs of the social ladder. In 1982, with the support of the Akali Dal’s leadership, he launched the Dharam Yudh Morcha, a civil disobedience movement.

Bhindranwale and his followers started getting more violent, and by 1984, the situation had become dangerous and instances of violence against Hindus, as well as government officers, had become common in Punjab.

Operation Blue Star

In 1984, Punjab was tense and Bhindranwale and his supporters had been camping inside the Golden Temple in Amritsar, when then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi took the big decision of ordering the Indian Army to flush out militants from the premises and neutralise their leader. Operation Blue Star, which began on June 1, 1984, was successful in its objectives, but it gravely wounded the Sikh sentiments across the world, and in fact strengthened the call for Khalistan.

The Aftermath of Operation Blue Star

On October 31, 1984, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated by her two Sikh bodyguards, fuelling one of the worst riots in Indian history. Extremist groups such as Khalistan Liberation Force, Khalistan Commando Force, Babbar Khalsa gained prominence and radicalised the youth.

Punjab, which became the hub of a long-drawn-out insurgency, witnessed some of the worst violence, lasting till 1995. While the extremist groups were believed to have been supported by Pakistan, which aimed to create unrest in India, the movement gradually tailed off as the majority of the population turned against the militants.