New Delhi: A third associate of radical Sikh leader Amritpal Singh was taken to hospital from a Dibrugarh jail following health complications, news reports said on Thursday (March 7).
According to these reports, Basant Singh was shifted to the Assam Medical College and Hospital from the Dibrugarh central jail on Thursday following a deterioration in his health.
Two other of Amritpal’s nine aides in the jail, Kulwant Singh Dhaliwal and Gurmeet Singh Bhukhanwala, were shifted to the same hospital on Tuesday.
A report in the Times of India said that Dhaliwal was admitted due to epilepsy-related issues and Bhukhanwala was “reportedly suffering from physical weakness”.
Amritpal and his associates are reported to be on a hunger strike since mid-February, though it is unclear exactly why.
The Indian Express reported that the strike is related to a demand for the ten detainees to be shifted to Punjab, and the Hindustan Times has reported that they are striking to protest ‘violations of their privacy and human rights’.
The Meghalayan news outlet said that Basant Singh, who was hospitalised yesterday, suffered a deterioration in his health because of the hunger strike.
Meanwhile, the Press Trust of India reported on Friday that the superintendent of the Dibrugarh central jail was arrested for “laxity” a month after electronic devices, including a smartphone and a spy-camera pen, were confiscated from Amritpal and his aides in the jail.
The list of gadgets seized also includes a SIM card, a keypad phone, “a TV remote with keyboard”, USB drives, Bluetooth headphones and speakers, PTI’s report said.
Who is Amritpal Singh?
Amritpal is known for his leadership last year of an organisation named Waris Punjab De (meaning ‘heirs of Punjab’), a pressure group that its founder described as fighting against the Union government for Punjab’s rights and to protest alleged attacks on its culture.
It has been accused by Punjab authorities of “professing radical ideology and demanding Punjab’s secession from India”.
Police in the state launched a crackdown on the group in February last year and a highly publicised manhunt to nab Amritpal soon followed, succeeding two months later.
Amritpal has said his broader agenda included tackling drug addiction in Punjab, convincing young people to follow puritan Sikh ideals, as well as making sure pending sacrilege cases were taken care of and that Sikh political prisoners were released.
His open support for Khalistan – the name of a proposed separate homeland for Sikhs – was another noteworthy aspect of his sudden but meteoric rise.
Authorities have invoked the stringent National Security Act against Amritpal and his aides.