A Sikh militant pushing for the creation of an independent “Khalistan” state in India has been on the run for weeks, prompting a protracted manhunt that has raised fears over a resurgence of separatist violence in Punjab state.
The search for Amritpal Singh has dominated newscasts, spawned conspiracy theories and revived memories of a surge of bloodshed almost 40 years ago in which thousands died during a wave of radicalism and security crackdowns, including prime minister Indira Gandhi, who was assassinated in 1984 by her Sikh security guards.
Police in Amritsar, the second-largest city in Punjab, last week issued a “hue and cry notice” calling on the public to offer information on the whereabouts of Amritpal, who has released a series of audio and video missives. In one, the 30-year-old self-styled preacher, clad in a black turban and shawl, claims to have evaded arrest “with the Guru’s blessing”, a reference to Guru Nanak, founder of the Sikh faith.
“I am not a fugitive, but a rebel,” he claimed in another video. “I am not going to run away from the country. I will come in front of the world soon.”
Police in Punjab have arrested more than 200 people, most of whom have been released, in a “mega crackdown” to locate Amritpal, who is wanted on charges including attempted murder, kidnapping, assaulting police, obstructing public officials and stoking “disharmony”. Authorities have also shut down mobile internet access and restricted public gatherings in parts of the state.
Amritpal has advocated the creation of Khalistan, a proposed sovereign Sikh state encompassing all or parts of Punjab, which New Delhi opposes.
The manhunt has become an international vexation for Indian prime minister Narendra Modi’s government. Supporters of the outlawed Khalistan separatist movement have attacked New Delhi’s diplomatic missions in San Francisco and London, where a man ripped down the Indian tricolour flag.
In India, police removed security barriers outside the British High Commission in New Delhi last month, in apparent retaliation after the London protest. India also summoned Canada’s ambassador after separatist protesters in British Columbia disrupted an event attended by its diplomats.
Indian TV and media outlets have seized on Amritpal’s speeches in coverage accompanied by hashtags such as #AmritpalOnTheRun and #HuntForAmritpal. Government officials have suggested he is being supported by Pakistani intelligence services, a charge Pakistan has denied in the past.
Some Bharatiya Janata party backers have used Amritpal’s case to browbeat the opposition Aam Aadmi party — which runs the government in Punjab, India’s only Sikh-majority state — ahead of next year’s general election.
“Has the state surrendered to a Khalistani?” the nationalist Republic TV asked in a recent newscast.
Security analysts and local community leaders said only a minority of Sikhs endorsed separatism, and the biggest source of support for Khalistan was the large diaspora.
“The greatest prominence to the Khalistan movement has been given by the government,” said Ajai Sahni, executive director of the Institute for Conflict Management. He said pro-government media “have been drumming up the threat of the Khalistan movement over the past several years, far out of proportion to the actual threat”.
According to Sahni’s research, India has recorded about 20 Khalistan-related fatalities since 2016, compared with none for the previous eight years. However, attacks attributed to the movement had mostly been carried out by “gangsters” rather than adherents, he said. Some of those arrested have not been Sikhs.
But endemic problems in Punjab, a north-western state of 30mn that borders Pakistan, may help fuel militancy. The state, once one of India’s richest, has battled widespread drug trafficking and abuse and its agriculture sector is struggling. Many farmers joined mass protests in 2021 against agricultural reforms introduced by Modi’s government.
“Amritpal Singh comes into a Punjab where a total vacuum exists in political and religious leadership,” said Gurpreet Singh, a Sikh community activist and thinker in Chandigarh, the state’s capital. “A space that should have been filled by moderate objective thought has been filled by the more radical elements.”
Some in the Sikh diaspora who emigrated during India’s violent crackdown in the 1980s supported militancy, he added. “Because there has been no closure, their angst comes out every time,” he said. “They pass it on to the next generation.”
Hardline Indian nationalists’ vilification of religious minorities and vocal support for a Hindu rashtra (nation) had also empowered separatism, analysts said.
Amritpal shot to prominence in February after he and armed supporters attacked a police station in Ajnala, near Amritsar, where one of his close associates Lovepreet Singh, was being held in a kidnapping and assault case that also involved Amritpal. Lovepreet, who was released in the wake of the incident, has also gone into hiding.
Amritpal’s biography is hazy but Punjab residents said he returned to Punjab in 2022 after spending several years in Dubai. Back home, he spoke of weaning wayward youth from drugs and bringing them back into the fold of Sikhism.
However, Indian authorities have focused on his violent threats against government officials, including home minister Amit Shah, a powerful Modi ally. Amritpal warned in February that if Shah tried to stop the Khalistan movement, he would “meet the same fate” as Gandhi, the late Indian leader.
Police have been mobilised in force along main roads and public areas in Punjab. In Ludhiana, one of the state’s largest cities, residents said they had not heard of Amritpal before he went on the run but were now following every twist in the search.
“They are arresting random people now for Amritpal,” said Sukhdev Singh, a 57-year-old Sikh farmer who remembers being questioned in 1992. “That’s what was happening then, and the same thing is happening now.”
