Pro-Khalistan preacher’s aide released from jail, a day after his supporters clashed with police
The HinduAccused in a kidnapping and assault case, Lovepreet Singh alias Toofan Singh — a close aide of self-styled Sikh preacher and Khalistani sympathiser Amritpal Singh — was released from jail in Punjab’s Ajnala on Friday. On Thursday, armed with swords, guns and sharp weapons, scores of supporters of Mr. Amritpal Singh, who heads the radical Waris Punjab De outfit, scuffled with police personnel, injuring a few. “If a group of people armed with all sorts of weapons, including guns and swords, lay siege to a police station that resulted in bloody clashes, leaving many of them injured, it must be termed as a collapse of law and order machinery in Punjab,” Congress MLA Partap Singh Bajwa, leader of the Opposition in the Punjab Assembly, said. He went on to warn the local administration, saying that “.if the demands were not met, then the administration would be responsible for whatever happens.” Mr. Amritpal Singh was among several people who were recently booked by the Punjab police on allegations of kidnapping, theft and voluntarily causing hurt to a resident of Chamkaur Sahib in Rupnagar district.