Amritpal Singh Arrested: Police Want Vehicle That Carried Guru Granth Sahib at Ajnala — Court Gives 2-Day Remand
Court Gives Amritpal Singh Two-Day Remand Against 15 Days Sought
Arvind Chhabra
Chandigarh, April 23
Three years after an armed mob led by Punjab MP and radical leader Amritpal Singh allegedly stormed a police station in Amritsar district — with Punjab Police standing down because the holy Guru Granth Sahib was being carried in a Sri Palki Sahib at the head of the procession — the same police force landed in Dibrugarh, Assam on Thursday to formally arrest him in that case.
What happened in court today, however, raised as many questions about the investigation as it answered.
Amritpal Singh’s lawyer in the Ajnala court today, Advocate Harpal Singh Khara, told North Desk that Punjab Police began their remand application by seeking recovery of vehicles and weapons used in the February 2023 incident. “Then they mentioned that they wanted to recover the vehicle that had carried the Guru Granth Sahib,” he said. “We asked: was this vehicle ever mentioned in any DDR over these three years? The state had no answer.”
Khara said he then suggested that the judge ask Amritpal Singh directly — who was present via video conferencing from Dibrugarh Central Jail in Assam. “The judge agreed. Amritpal replied confidently to all questions. On the vehicle, he said he had no idea who had brought it there or where it was. On weapons, he said no weapons were used,” Khara told North Desk.
The court, apparently unimpressed by the state’s case for a lengthy remand, granted only two days — against the 15 days police had sought, said Khara.
It was the same vehicle — carrying the Sri Palki Sahib with the Guru Granth Sahib — that Punjab Police had cited three years ago as the very reason they could not retaliate when Amritpal Singh’s armed supporters allegedly stormed Police Station Ajnala on February 23, 2023. That one afternoon set off a chain of events that has brought Punjab Police to Dibrugarh today — and raises a question the state has yet to answer in court: if the vehicle was central enough to stop police action that day, why does no one know where it is three years later?
Here is the full story of what happened that day — and the three years that brought Punjab Police to Assam today.
Amritsar, February 23, 2023. 2:00 PM.
A convoy rolled out of Jallupur Khera village in Amritsar — Amritpal Singh’s ancestral home. At its centre was a bus carrying a Sri Palki Sahib with the Guru Granth Sahib placed inside. Surrounding it were several hundred men, many of them allegedly armed with swords, firearms and lathis. Their destination: Police Station Ajnala, on the outskirts of Amritsar city. Their demand: the release of Lovepreet Singh alias Toofan, a close aide of Amritpal Singh who had been arrested days earlier.
By the time the convoy reached the police station periphery, it had swelled to thousands. Punjab Police had deployed a significant force at the site. What followed — and what did not — would define the next three years of Punjab’s political and security landscape.
THE MOMENT POLICE STOOD DOWN
The armed mob reached the barricades. Police deployed on the spot tried to stop them. What happened next is on public record, captured on CCTV cameras and dozens of mobile phones — and acknowledged by Punjab Police itself.
During the confrontation, the protesters carried the holy Guru Granth Sahib in a palanquin inside a bus, which the police say forced them to exercise restraint while dealing with the mob.
The then Senior Superintendent of Police, Harpal Singh Randhawa, went on record with a TV channel the following day and explained — in words that became defining — why his force did not respond: “What happened yesterday should not have happened. Punjab Police did not retaliate because Amritpal had brought Guru Granth Sahib with him. I would like to salute the Punjab Police personnel who did not retaliate.”
He was not done. “Amritpal had earlier said that he would hold only peaceful dharna. But he cheated us. His men attacked the Punjab Police. But we did not retaliate at all because Guru Granth Sahib was in front.”
The senior police officer added: “There is a rule of law in Punjab. Amritpal is not above the law. If we had taken even a little action, the situation could have worsened across Punjab.”
The mob, exploiting that restraint, allegedly broke through the barricades, stormed the police station building, injured multiple personnel — including SP-rank officer Jugraj Singh — and damaged police vehicles. According to claims made by Punjab Police before the Punjab and Haryana High Court — North Desk has a copy of the petition — Amritpal Singh himself led the mob that day, used the Guru Granth Sahib as a deliberate shield knowing full well that police would not act, and delivered a speech outside the police station invoking the assassination of former Chief Minister Beant Singh — suggesting that those present had the potential to produce “Dilawars,” human bombs like the one who killed him.
The state government, the SGPC, Akal Takht and Sikh intellectuals condemned the incident. People also criticised the police for what many called a “meek” surrender. Punjab Police was simultaneously condemned for allowing the breach and for not acting forcefully enough. It was an impossible position — and Amritpal Singh had engineered it with precision.
As for the immediate demand: Amritpal had termed the earlier kidnapping case against him “false” and had announced a protest at the Ajnala police station demanding the release of Lovepreet Singh Toofan, who had been arrested and later sent to judicial custody. The siege worked. The police released Lovepreet Toofan. The police had capitulated.
WHO IS AMRITPAL SINGH — AND HOW DID HE GET HERE
To understand that February afternoon, you need to understand the man who orchestrated it.
Amritpal Singh, 33, from Jallupur Khera in Amritsar district, had spent years working in a cargo company in Dubai after migrating there in 2012. He returned to India in August 2022 — not as a cargo company employee, but as the self-proclaimed Mukh Sevadar (Chief Servant) of Waris Punjab De, an organisation founded by actor-activist Sandeep Singh alias Deep Sidhu, who had died in a road accident in February 2022.
Till two months before the Ajnala incident, Punjab Police and central agencies were silent observers to his activities. He was conducting the “Khalsa Vaheer” yatra with a palki carrying a saroop of the Guru Granth Sahib. Despite his pro-Khalistan speeches, his programmes attracted considerable public response — people were drawn to his stated mission of weaning youth away from drugs and bringing back into the Sikh fold those who had drifted to other religions.
In September 2022, he was baptised at Sri Anandpur Sahib in a widely publicised ceremony. He began travelling across Punjab, meeting religious, political and radical leaders — allegedly always accompanied by armed bodyguards brandishing weapons and carrying walkie-talkies. These bodyguards, according to the Punjab Police petition, were the nucleus of what would become the Anandpur Khalsa Fauj — an armed private militia that police claim was formed at his behest to train youth to fight against India’s sovereignty, camouflaged as a network of de-addiction centres.
Punjab Police cite his interviews given in 2022-23 to multiple media channels in which he stated on camera that demanding a separate nation, Khalistan, was “the bounden duty of every true Sikh.” He was widely seen on social media as carrying forward the agenda of Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale. The Punjab Police petition before the High Court quotes his speeches as evidence of the radicalisation of youth in a sensitive border state.
The immediate trigger for Ajnala was a kidnapping. Weeks before the siege, one Varinder Singh of Chamkaur Sahib in Rupnagar — who had uploaded a video criticising Amritpal Singh’s activities — was abducted allegedly on Amritpal’s instructions, brought before him, and assaulted during captivity to silence him. A case was registered. One of the accused in that kidnapping case, Lovepreet Singh alias Toofan, was subsequently arrested by Ajnala police. Amritpal declared he would stage a dharna at the police station and get Toofan released.
What followed was not a dharna.
THE AFTERMATH: 35 DAYS ON THE RUN
The day after the Ajnala siege, Punjab Police registered a case — carrying charges of attempt to murder, assault on a public servant, criminal conspiracy, rioting, unlawful assembly and Arms Act violations, among others. No immediate action followed.
Then, on March 18, 2023, Punjab Police launched a coordinated crackdown — one of the largest security operations in the state since the 1990s. Fifty companies of Central Armed Police Forces were deployed. Internet was suspended across Punjab. Amritpal Singh evaded the operation and went underground, remaining on the run for 35 days. This correspondent – then representing an international media organisation–remembers that during that period, rumours swirled — that he had been killed in a police encounter, that he was in police custody, that he had fled abroad. Roads were blocked by protesters. The state government remained on edge.
Ten of his associates were picked up and detained under the NSA, lodged at Dibrugarh Central Jail in Assam. Amritpal eluded the dragnet — changing appearances, moving between locations — until he was finally arrested on April 23, 2023, from Rode village in Moga. He was immediately detained under the NSA and flown to Dibrugarh. He had not been formally arrested in the Ajnala case — because from the moment of his NSA detention onwards, preventive detention kept him in custody without requiring it.
THE MP FROM DIBRUGARH JAIL
What happened next is arguably the most remarkable chapter in this story.
In April-May 2024, India announced Lok Sabha elections. Amritpal Singh, sitting in Dibrugarh Jail under the NSA, filed his nomination papers for the Khadoor Sahib constituency in Punjab — through his lawyer, after approaching the Punjab and Haryana High Court for temporary release to file in person. The court declined. The Election Commission accepted his papers. Shiromani Akali Dal, which had initially fielded a candidate from Khadoor Sahib, withdrew after his nomination was confirmed.
On June 4, 2024, the results came in. Amritpal Singh won the Khadoor Sahib seat by a margin of over 1.97 lakh votes — securing 4,04,430 votes against his nearest rival, Congress’s Kulbir Singh Zira who secured 2,07,310 votes. It was the highest winning margin by any candidate in Punjab in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. He won it from jail, without campaigning, without addressing a single rally. The verdict was widely read as a significant political statement from Punjab’s voters.
He has been an MP since — but has remained in Dibrugarh under successive NSA detention orders, never having attended Parliament.
Here are 12 reasons why Punjab Police wants to arrest Amritpal Singh
THREE YEARS, THREE NSA ORDERS
Punjab Police’s petition before the High Court — filed on April 15, 2026, two days before the HC order — tells the story of three consecutive NSA detention orders, each on fresh grounds.
The first detention in March 2023 cited the Ajnala attack, the formation of the Anandpur Khalsa Fauj, and his anti-national speeches. The second detention in March 2024 cited his continued contact from jail with Pro-Khalistani Elements abroad — including designated terrorists Avtar Singh Khanda (UK) and Hardeep Singh Nijjar (Canada) — and a letter circulated from Dibrugarh jail provoking retaliation for their killings. The third detention in April 2025 cited his alleged role as mastermind in the murder of Gurpreet Singh Harinau — a vocal critic killed on October 9, 2024 — and a growing hit list of critics.
On April 16, 2026, a division bench of the Punjab and Haryana High Court — Chief Justice Sheel Nagu and Justice Sanjiv Berry — dismissed his challenge to the third NSA order, finding that “the apprehension of breach of security of State and public order continues to subsist.”
But the NSA — which can be extended for a maximum of twelve months at a time — expired on April 22, 2026. The Punjab government chose not to seek a fourth extension.
TODAY: THE ARREST IN DIBRUGARH
Amritsar Rural police reached Dibrugarh in Assam to formally arrest Amritpal Singh in connection with the Ajnala police station attack case. A Deputy Superintendent of Police-rank officer led the team that arrived in Assam on Sunday evening. “Our team is already in Dibrugarh. Amritpal will be arrested in connection with the Ajnala police station attack case as soon as his detention ends and will be produced in a local court to secure a remand,” a senior official said. The court has granted two days’ remand.
He will not be coming to Punjab. On April 17 — two days before the arrest — the same High Court bench passed an interim order directing that all trial proceedings, including remand, chargesheet and hearing, be conducted through video conferencing from Dibrugarh jail. The court cited “live and proximate danger of breach of public order” if he were to physically appear in court at Amritsar. The state of Assam has given written consent to continue lodging him under the Transfer of Prisoners Act.
His nine associates — Papalpreet Singh, Daljeet Singh Kalsi, Kulwant Singh, Varinder Johal, Gurmeet Singh Bhukhanwala, his uncle Harjit Singh, Basant Singh, Gurinder Singh Aujla and Bhagwant Singh — were detained under the NSA earlier but shifted to Punjab last year and are currently facing trial in the Ajnala sub-divisional court.
Charges have been framed against more than two dozen people in the case, including Amritpal Singh, for attempt to murder, assault on a public servant, obstructing a public servant, criminal intimidation, criminal conspiracy, rioting, unlawful assembly, causing disappearance of evidence, and Arms Act violations. No bail has been granted to any of the accused, right up to the Supreme Court level.
THE OTHER SIDE
Amritpal Singh’s legal team has consistently maintained that the Ajnala case and all 12 cases registered against him are false and politically motivated. His lawyer Imaan Singh Khara, appearing before the High Court, has argued that there is no “live and proximate link” between his past conduct and any prospective criminal threat. Khara has said the transition from NSA to a criminal arrest is a positive development from the defence perspective — because bail, unlike under the NSA, is now legally possible. He has drawn comparisons with Arvind Kejriwal, who was granted bail by the Supreme Court during election campaigning, and Engineer Rashid, the Baramulla MP who secured bail to attend Parliament’s budget session — both arrested MPs who obtained bail. “The path has eased to an extent,” he said.
Amritpal Singh’s father, at the time of his April 2023 arrest, said his son had “done no crime” and was “serving the community by weaning youth away from drugs.” His family said he surrendered in proper Sikhi Saroop.
