ISI behind self-styled Khalistan leader Amritpal Singh?

Days after supporters of self styled Khalistan leader and head of Waris de Punjab, Amritpal Singh, stormed a police station in Ajnala with the Sikh holy book in hand, there is wide spread interest in the man. Central agencies claim they have been regularly warning against the meteoric rise on social media of Amritpal Singh, who earlier worked in Dubai.Who is Amritpal Singh, and why is he suddenly taking over headlines? To explain the rise of the social media star into a man with ground support, Times Special spoke to Bharti Jain, a Senior Editor with the Times of India.According to Jain, Amritpal Singh has been a “person of interest” since he was named the successor to Waris de Punjab, an organisation started in 2021 by late Deep Sidhu, a known radical voice. Sidhu, who was active during the farmer’s protests in 2020, died in an accident in 2022.Singh however, was not popular at the time. It is only in the past few months that Singh’s popularity has shot up, through means that are not organic, security agencies suspect.Amritpal Singh came back to India from Dubai in August last year. Bharti Jain points out that Intelligence agencies sent an alert to Punjab police. The idea was that even though there was no case against Amritpal Singh, security agencies wanted to keep an eye on his activities. Agencies felt that Singh’s return to India was an attempt by agencies across the border to plant him and use him to whip up Sikh sentiments.Singh initially had a private army of around 5-6 armed people, which has steadily grown, now consisting of over 20 armed men.Central security agencies claim they had warned Punjab police to keep an eye on Amritpal Singh’s activities, as well as verify the increasing armed supporters he was acquiring or the financial backing he was getting.This however, was not done. Instead, Singh’s popularity has been growing, with locals and supporters, says Jain, trying to show Singh’s return as a reverse migration, as a man who was settled aborad but is coming back to Punjab to fight for Sikh rights.The anointment of Amritpal Singh at Moga, the village of Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, while underscoring Singh’s Khalistan ambitions has helped cement his cultivated similarities with the late leader to his supporters.Many observers attest to the fact that Amritpal Singh has styled himself on the late Khalistan leader, wearing the same kind of clothes, etc.Central agencies also claim that Punjab police has let many instances go by where Amritpal Singh and his supporters could have been stopped. For instance, the incident when his supporters vandalised a gurudwara citing puritan Sikh rituals. Thereafter, in Ajnala where his supporters broke into a police station to free one of Singh’s supporters.Audio production: Shantanu NanotiThumbnail illustration: Manish Choure