Amritpal Singh case: At a village gurdwara, an abandoned SUV, late night announcement of two men jumping boundary wall, escaping

The entire scene unfolded after a Counter Intelligence team of Hoshiarpur police, following specific inputs, chased the white Innova, coming from Phagwara to Hoshiarpur for 37 km on the suspicion that on the run pro-Khalistan preacher Amritpal Singh, and his associates, including Pappalpreet Singh, were in the vehicle after having sneaked into Punjab.

The police chase ended at the gurdwara where a massive search operation continued throughout night.

“It was dark. The men moved too fast and so I couldn’t not see their faces,” Granthi Mangat Singh told the Indian Express.

After the police too reached the shrine, the Granthi made an announcement from the gurdwara. “The villagers gathered at the gurdwara in no time and in another 20 minutes heavy police force reached the village and surrounded it before launching the the search operation,” he added.

The Granthi and the villagers were in for a shock when police told them that the duo who escaped may have been Amritpal and his accomplice.

More than 24 hours later, police force and paramilitary forces remained deployed on the Phagwara-Hoshiarpur road even as a cordon and search operation continued in and around the Marnaian village “The search is going on, but we haven’t traced anyone yet,” said a police official from Hoshiarpur.

He said CCTV footage in the area was also being scanned.

The entire top brass of the Jalandhar police, including DIG Jalandhar range, Swapan Sharma remained at the spot till wee hours of Wednesday.

Villager Baldev Singh told The Indian Express that police took footage from the CCTV camera installed at the gurdwara.

Villagers said that the Innova was rushing through the narrow lanes of the village at a high speed. They that at a T-Point in the village, one road goes towards the gurdwara and the other towards the new village. The vehicles which the police were chasing, took the road towards gurdwara, which has a dead end. On coming across the dead end, the vehicle entered the gate of the shrine.

Amritpal remains untraceable since a police crackdown against him on March 18, about three weeks after he and his supporters stormed into the Ajnala police station to secure the release of an arrested man.