Amritpal shifted to Dibrugarh jail amid tight security
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Dibrugarh: Amid tight security, Khalistani separatist Amritpal Singh was shifted to the Dibrugarh central jail in Assam on Sunday following his arrest in Punjab earlier in the day.
He was flown from Punjab's Bathinda air base to Dibrugarh's Mohanbari airport under tight security.
A team of Punjab Police and National Security Agency (NSA) officials arrived in Dibrugarh with the Waris Punjab De chief. A huge team of Assam Police personnel was also present at the Mohanbari airport.
The Assam Police have, however, refused to issue any official statement on Amritpal's arrival in Dibrugarh. Meanwhile, the security cover outside the central jail was beefed up.
Already, a multi-tier security arrangement was in place, but more security personnel were deployed on Sunday. The general public was not allowed to go near the jail.
Nine other aides of Amritpal Singh, including his close aide Papalpreet and uncle Harjit Singh, have been lodged in the Dibrugarh central jail since last month.
The 30-year-old Waris Punjab De chief who had been on the run since March 18, was arrested on Sunday morning from Rode in Moga district -- the native village of Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, who was killed in the Indian Army's Operation Blue Star in 1984. Amritpal had tried to pose himself as Bhindranwale 2.0.
Three days before his arrest, the Waris Punjab De chief's Britain-origin wife Kirandeep Kaur was stopped at the Amritsar airport and not allowed by immigration officials to board a flight to Birmingham, officials said.
After questioning, Kaur has been sent to her home in Jallupur Khera in the Amritsar district and asked her not to leave the country without informing the police.
"We have prevented her from leaving the country. She was neither detained nor arrested. She was stopped because she is needed for questioning related to the case," said Senior Superintendent of Police (Amritsar Rural) Satinder Singh told the media.
Officials said that Kaur has a visa for a limited period in India that is about to expire.
She has been questioned several times earlier also by police for her role in supporting the organisation that was formed by the late actor-activist, Deep Sidhu.
Amritpal Singh, against whom the NSA has been invoked and a non-bailable warrant issued, had been on the run until now despite the massive manhunt launched to nab him since March 18.
The self-styled preacher, who returned from Dubai last year, tied the knot in a simple ceremony in February.
He shot to prominence in February after an armed mob led by him clashed with police and laid siege to a police station near Amritsar, demanding the release of one of their colleagues who had been taken into custody in an alleged kidnapping case. Six policemen were injured in the bloody clash.
With inputs from agencies