India blocks internet in Punjab as security forces pursue separatists

Authorities restricted communications across India’s Punjab state for a third day on Monday as the manhunt continued for a Sikh separatist leader, whose rapid rise in the public eye has sparked fears of violence in a state with vivid memories of a bloody separatist insurgency.

The statewide search for Amritpal Singh, 30 – who leads a group called Waris Punjab De, meaning ‘the heirs of Punjab’ – comes a month after the self-proclaimed preacher and hundreds of his followers took storming a police station with swords and guns, demanding the release of one of his collaborators. Six police officers were injured in the clash.

For many in India, the images of armed supporters of Mr Singh chasing police in the city of Amritsar brought to mind the 1980s in Punjab, India’s only Sikh-majority state, when thousands were killed in a an insurgency by Sikh separatists raged on. for years.

Internet service has been blocked and phone communications restricted in Punjab since Saturday when the manhunt began. Local police officials said the government had deployed thousands of paramilitary troops to Punjab, many of whom were patrolling the streets and setting up checkpoints.

Satinder Singh, a senior Amritsar police official, said the separatist leader was wanted in connection with the storming of the police station.

Sukhchain Singh Gill, the Inspector General of Punjab Police, said 114 people had been arrested so far. “Amritpal is still at large,” he said.

In a protest in London on Sunday over the crackdown in Punjab and the decision to arrest Mr Singh, Sikh separatists climbed onto the balcony of the Indian High Commission, lowered the Indian national flag and attempted to hoist the flag of Khalistan, as the movement calls its so-called homeland. India has summoned a senior British diplomat to New Delhi to protest what it called the security breach at the London embassy.

Promoting the cause of Khalistan has been banned in India, but it remains a rallying cry for some Sikhs in Punjab and the Sikh diaspora, especially in Canada and the UK. In recent years, India has repeatedly expressed its displeasure with some Western countries over the ease with which supporters of the movement have been able to gather and fundraise in their capitals.

Mr Singh, who for years drove a truck and ran a small car rental business in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, was unknown until last year when he emerged in Punjab and started running marches joined by thousands of people. He called for protecting the rights of Sikhs and the culture of Punjab against what he called the overreach of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist government. He extended his appeal by combining appeals to religious faith with commentary on social issues, such as Punjab’s endemic drug problems.

Mr Singh encouraged his followers to associate him with Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, the Sikh separatist leader who was killed along with many of his followers in 1984 when the Indian army stormed the Golden Temple in Amritsar. In September, Mr Singh was honored at a religious ceremony in Mr Bhindranwale’s home village.

In recent months, as well as calling for an independent Sikh state, Mr Singh has implicitly threatened India’s powerful home minister, Amit Shah. He suggested that Mr Shah would suffer the same fate as Indira Gandhi, the prime minister who was assassinated by her Sikh bodyguards in 1984 after ordering the raid on the Golden Temple, one of the most important Sikh sites. more sacred. His death was followed by widespread violence against Sikhs in New Delhi.

Waris Punjab De, the organization Mr Singh now leads, was founded by Deep Sidhu, an actor who died in a traffic accident last year. It was part of a successful campaign to mobilize farmers in Punjab, mostly Sikhs, against an attempt by Mr Modi to overhaul Indian agriculture, which farmers say would make them even more vulnerable to companies at a when many were struggling with debt. .

The year-long protest movement, which forced Mr Modi’s government to withdraw its legislation, turned violent after culminating in a massive show of force on India’s Republic Day in the heart of New Delhi in 2021.

On Monday, thousands of farmers, many from Punjab, again descended on New Delhi, protesting what they called the government’s ‘broken promises’ since Mr Modi withdrew the bills and promised to study their request that minimum prices be guaranteed for their crops. They threatened to lead a larger protest movement than the previous one.

At a time when the Indian government has been quick to arrest activists and government critics, questions have been raised as to why Mr Modi’s central government and Punjab heads of state allowed M Singh to travel the state for months and openly mobilize for a separatist cause.

Saurabh Bharadwaj, spokesman for Punjab’s ruling Aam Aadmi party, said politics played no role in why action was not taken immediately against Mr Singh after his takeover from the police station.

“This is a professional government operation,” he said. “We will deal with those kinds of law and order issues.”

Mujib Mashal And Karan Deep Sing contributed report.

Ny

Not all news on the site expresses the point of view of the site, but we transmit this news automatically and translate it through programmatic technology on the site and not from a human editor.

goadnews

Victoriafox