Mobile internet is suspended across India’s Punjab region as police search for a Sikh separatist leader who has been on the run since Saturday.
More than 100 of Amritpal Singh’s supporters have been arrested.
Singh remains at-large and his whereabouts are unknown.
According to the BBC:
Amritpal Singh claims to draw inspiration from Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, a preacher accused by the Indian government of leading an armed insurgency for a separate Sikh homeland – Khalistan – in the 1980s.
Bhindranwale was killed in the Indian army’s controversial Operation Blue Star in 1984.
On Sunday, people carrying “Khalistan” banners protested outside the Indian High Commission in London.
Videos showed a man detaching the Indian flag from the balcony of the building. Angry Indian officials summoned the UK’s deputy high commissioner in Delhi to protest.
Indian authorities extended the mobile internet blackout in Punjab on Monday, as the hunt for Amritpal Singh continued.
Addressing a news conference, Punjab’s Inspector General of Police Sukhchain Singh Gill said five of the 30-year-old preacher’s associates had been arrested and charged under India’s stringent National Security Act.
He said a number of weapons and vehicles used by the separatists had been recovered, including a Mercedes that Amritpal Singh had used to get away from police on Saturday.
The police crackdown comes weeks after Mr Singh’s supporters stormed a police station, demanding the release of an aide who had been arrested.
On Saturday, police declared Mr Singh “a fugitive” and launched a state-wide search for him. Traffic blockades were set up across the state to check vehicles.
Funny how so many conspiracy theories are becoming reality these days, isn’t it?
I remember when researchers were derided and dismissed as loons when they said that governments would one day deploy an internet blackout or kill-switch to keep populations in the dark.
Yeah. What a crazy conspiracy theory.
