Sikh separatist leader Amritpal Singh was little known inside India until a month ago. Now police have launched a massive manhunt for him in India’s northern Punjab state after his calls for an independent Sikh homeland stoked fears of violence in a region that was gripped by a bloody insurgency four decades ago.
The 30-year-old Singh, a self-styled Sikh preacher, catapulted onto the national stage when he and scores of young men brandishing swords and guns stormed a police station in Punjab last month demanding the release of a jailed aide. Police later said they could not beat back the mob because they used the Sikh holy book as shields.
The images of Singh’s armed followers chasing policemen raised concerns that his support could be growing in the farming state, where nearly 60 percent of the population is Sikh.
Thousands of police and paramilitary forces have been searching for Singh since Saturday. More than 150 of his followers have been arrested and internet service has been restricted in the state.
Accused of sowing discord, Singh has been declared a fugitive. Promoting the cause of Khalistan — the name given to an independent Sikh homeland — has been outlawed in India and has little support in Punjab, according to analysts. It remains a rallying cry, though, among some sections of the Sikh diaspora in countries like Britain and Canada.
But the sudden emergence of Singh in Punjab revived chilling memories of the bloody insurgency that led to the death of thousands of people, including top officials in the 1980s and early 1990s. Former Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated by her Sikh bodyguards in 1984 after she ordered an army operation to flush out militants from the Golden Temple, one of Sikhism’s holiest sites.
Singh, who had moved to Dubai in 2012 to join his family’s transportation business, returned to India last year when he became the leader of a group called Waris Punjab De, or “the heirs of Punjab.”
The organization played a role in mobilizing a massive, year-long protest movement by thousands of farmers in 2021 against agricultural reforms introduced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government. (VOA)