Guwahati, 8th April: The mother of Amritpal Singh was arrested on Sunday just a day before a scheduled march to demand the transfer of the radical Sikh preacher from Dibrugarh jail in Assam to a prison in Punjab.
Amritpal, the chief of the ‘Waris Punjab De’ outfit, was apprehended in April last year, with the stringent National Security Act invoked against him. Currently, he and nine associates are lodged in Dibrugarh jail in Assam. Balwinder Kaur, Amritpal’s mother, has been sent to judicial custody, according to Deputy Commissioner of Police Alam Vijay Singh.
While Singh clarified that it was a preventive arrest, he declined to provide further details. Additionally, Amritpal’s uncle Sukhchain Singh and three others have also been detained, as confirmed by police sources.
The arrests come on the eve of the ‘Chetna March’ scheduled to commence from Takht Damdama Sahib in Bathinda on April 8. The march aimed to demand the transfer of Amritpal and nine others from the Assam jail to Punjab.
Kaur and relatives of other detainees had been on a hunger strike near the Golden Temple in Amritsar since February 22, asserting that they would continue until Amritpal and others were relocated to a Punjab jail.
Apart from Amritpal, nine of his associates, including Daljeet Singh Kalsi, Papalpreet Singh, and others, have been booked under the NSA.
The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) condemned the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government for the police action. SAD spokesman Parambans Singh Romana denounced the detention of various march organizers, including Amritpal Singh’s mother, terming it as condemnable.
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