Punjab Police Deploys Drones to Trace Amritpal Singh’s Swift Car After Dramatic Chase

Punjab police has deployed drones to trace ‘Waris Punjab De’ leader Amritpal Singh who has been on the run for over 10 days. The move comes after an alleged chase on the Phagwara-Hoshiarpur road in a Swift car in which Singh is said to have escaped. The fugitive recently appeared in a video calling for a ‘Sarbat Khalsa’ congregation on Baisakhi.

Amritpal Singh has been on the run since March 18 after a National Security Act (NSA) was invoked against him and his co-conspirators. While his aides were arrested, Singh managed to slip away by changing multiple vehicles, changing his clothes, and even robbing a bike at gunpoint. Recently, he appeared in a video calling for a ‘Sarbat Khalsa’ congregation on Baisakhi. He also said that he was in high spirits.

In the video, he also shared that he is not in police custody and said, “If the government’s intention had only been to arrest me, it could have come to my house and arrested me, I would have given up. But the way adopted by the government to deploy lakhs of cops and laying a cordon, the Almighty brought us out of that” (translated).

Now, new reports suggest the fugitive was involved in a chase on the Phagwara-Hoshiarpur road in a Swift car but managed to escape once again. Punjab police is said to have deployed drones to trace the car. The Swift car’s license plate ends with ‘8168.’ Border areas of Himachal Pradesh have been alerted as well.

The crackdown on ‘Waris Punjab De’ activist group and its leader Amritpal Singh began after a large gathering of the members of the group clashed with police officers at the Ajnala police station demanding the release of one of their members. Since then, 360 people have been detained and according to reports, 348 have been released.

Vineet Washington