Amritpal Singh's bodyguard held for brandishing illegal gun

LUDHIANA: Payal police on Wednesday evening arrested a "gunman" of Khalistan advocate Amritpal Singh from his Mangewal village of Khanna's Malaud area and identified him as Tejinder Singh 'Gorkha Baba'.

He was booked under section 188 (defying public servant) of the Indian Penal Code at the Malaud police station for brandishing weapons on social media. He holds an illegal .315-bore pump-action gun behind Amritpal Singh in the latter's rallies and interviews. The FIR registered by Malaud police station suggests that a police party deployed near a liquor shop at Kuhli Kala village received a tipoff around 8pm about Tejinder. The informer had spotted him in a car heading from Kuhli Khurd to Kartarpur and suggested that he could be trapped near Kartarpur.

Payal deputy superintendent of police Harsimrat Singh said: "Based on his social media images, we booked Tejinder and arrested him. He has told us in the preliminary interrogation than he was with Amritpal in storming the Ajnala police station to free a man but not with him in the later incident at Mehatpur in Jalandhar district. Tejinder is occasional visitor to his village."

Tejinder has also told police that he was part of the farmers' agitation on the Delhi borders for seven to eight months. There he met some people who later joined Amritpal.

Tejinder moved into the gurdwara of Amritpal's Jallupur Khera village, where 4 months ago, Amritpal included him in his bodyguards, from where he graduated to be his close aide. He has two cases against him at Payal and Malaud, one of which is of liquor smuggling and the other of assault. The cases date back to 2020 and 2021. Tejinder is married but childless at 40. He is a farmer with two brothers, one a farmer and other a truck driver.


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