Amritpal Singh arrested after Weeks-Long Manhunt

Sikh separatist Amritpal Singh has been arrested after evading police for several weeks.

The 30-year-old went on the run after evading arrest in Punjab on March 18, 2023.

He and his supporters are accused of attempted murder and attacking police officials.

Singh was arrested in the village of Rode in Moga at around 6:45 am on April 23, 2023.

Inspector General of Police (headquarters) Sukhchain Singh Gill said the police had created relentless pressure on Amritpal Singh and he had no other option left but to surrender.

Singh was arrested under the National Security Act (NSA), which allows individuals to be detained without being charged for up to a year.

He will be taken to the high-security Dibrugarh jail in Assam, where some of his supporters have been kept.

Singh shot to prominence in February 2023 after hundreds of his supporters infiltrated a police station, demanding the release of an arrested aide.

His campaign brought back memories from the 1980s of a separatist insurgency and subsequent crackdown in Punjab in which thousands of people were killed.

Singh says he supports the Khalistan movement for a separate Sikh state.

He claimed to have drawn inspiration from Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, a preacher accused by the Indian government of leading an armed insurgency in the 1980s.

Bhindranwale was killed in the Indian army’s storming of the Golden Temple in 1984.

The manhunt for Singh spanned several parts of northern India, including Delhi, Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand.

Nepal had also put him on its surveillance list at India’s request.

Police first attempted to arrest Singh on March 18, deploying thousands of officers. Traffic blockades were also set up across Punjab to check vehicles.

But Singh escaped a dramatic car chase, which was live-streamed by some of his associates.

Within hours of Singh’s escape, authorities blocked internet services in Punjab, restricted the movement of people, and arrested hundreds of Singh’s supporters. Many of them were later released.

Akal Takht, the supreme temporal seat of Sikhs, had asked Singh to surrender to the police and cooperate with their investigation.

But after the crackdown, it also questioned the government’s arrests and detentions of people for their alleged support of Singh and for Khalistan.

Singh’s rise to prominence came out of nowhere.

He was based in Dubai and his popularity was just on social media, where his views on Sikh unity and statehood found plenty of resonance.

But in August 2022, he travelled from Dubai to India, looking like a devout Sikh, visibly different from old photos in which his hair and beard were neatly trimmed.