Journalism of Courage
The armed group that stormed the Ajnala police station near Amritsar in Punjab on Wednesday to get a man accused of assault and kidnapping released was led by Amritpal Singh who leads an outfit called Waris Punjab De. The organisation defines itself as a “pressure group” that was floated by actor Deep Sidhu who played a role in the 2020-’21 farm protests and was among the accused in the Red Fort violence case. Amritpal was a vocal supporter of Sidhu, who died in a car crash in February 2022, and the role the actor played during the farmers’ agitation.
Last September, as Amritpal Singh took charge of Waris Punjab De — calling on the youth from the community to “wake up” and “fight for the freedom” of the Panth and Punjab — the late actor’s family denied any links with Singh and alleged that he was “misusing Sidhu’s name” and “befooling the youth in the name of Khalistan”.
Sidhu’s first movie Ramta Jogi was released in 2015 but he became a star with filmmaker Amardeep Gill’s Jora Das Numbria in which he starred as a young gangster. A lawyer, actor, and activist, Sidhu commanded a significant social media presence. Sidhu was considered to be close to Bollywood star and BJP’s Gurdaspur MP Sunny Deol. Deep When Deol got the BJP ticket to contest from Gurdaspur in 2019, his campaign leaned heavily on a local team that included Sidhu.
Sidhu said that during lockdown he extensively read the works of Ajmer Singh, who mainly wrote about how Punjab and Sikh history had been tampered with. Sidhu’s videos on different subjects from politics to history, economics and education started getting more views on his Facebook page during the lockdown. As farmers began protesting against three central farm laws, which now stand repealed, Sidhu organised a massive protest at Delhi’s Shambhu border on September 25, 2020. With this, he became one of the integral figures of the demonstrations. A video of Sidhu went viral in November 2020. In it, he was seen arguing with the police in English and terming farmers’ protest ‘a revolution’ went viral.
At his public meetings, Sidhu often quoted Martin Luther King Jr and Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale. His speeches were built around the demand for more rights for states to strengthen the federal structure under the Constitution. He also claimed that while Punjab was fighting to strengthen the federal structure of India in the 1970s and 80s, the Indian state’s narrative misinterpreted this “struggle” of Punjab.
In 2021, Sidhu came under the scanner after a tractor march by protesters led to violence at the Red Fort. Following the violence, the Delhi Police registered 25 FIRs against farm union leaders and protesters for allegedly storming the Red Fort and vandalising property. The FIRs named Sidhu and gangster-turned-politician Lakhbir Sidhana for allegedly orchestrating the incident and inciting farmers. They were booked under sections of rioting, criminal conspiracy, attempt to murder and robbery. Sidhu remained on the run for several days after the police booked him.
Senior police officers claimed that Sidhu had come up in videos, posted on social media by protesters, addressing the crowd for the tractor march. He was arrested on February 9, 2021, by the Special Cell of Delhi Police. He was granted bail by a Delhi court that April. But, in a case lodged on a complaint filed by the Archaeological Survey of India, he was arrested again by the Crime Branch of Delhi Police from Tihar Jail for allegedly damaging Red Fort. Granted bail in the second case a few days later, he termed it “vicious and sinister”. The court in its order said the case “amounts to playing fraud with the established criminal process”.
Deep Sidhu’s road accident
On the first anniversary of the farmers’ tractor march, Sidhu, who was out on bail, told The Indian Express that he was working on three Punjabi movies, including one on the life of human rights activist Jaswant Singh Khalra. The release of the second chapter of Jora Das Numbria was also affected due to the Covid-19 lockdown.
Sidhu also ran a Mumbai-based law firm called Lex Legal that dealt with intellectual property rights and international law. His popularity, however, took a hit after the tractor parade. Some farmers’ unions distanced themselves from Sidhu, accusing him of a conspiracy over his links with Sunny Deol. Sidhu always denied allegations of being part of any conspiracy to defame the farmers’ movement and stayed popular among a big section of protesters till the very end of the agitation.
Sidhu and his friend, a Punjabi actress, were on their way to Punjab in an SUV when the vehicle hit the back of a stationary truck that was said to be parked by the side of the road in Sonepat in Haryana. The driver’s side of the car bore the brunt of the impact and Sidhu, who was at the wheel, died. Sidhu’s brother, however, claimed in a police controversy that the truck driver had applied brakes suddenly and caused the accident. The driver was subsequently arrested.
