Chandigarh: Punjab police Friday released Lovepreet Toofan, an accused of kidnapping and assault and an aide of radical preacher Amritpal Singh, a day after hundreds of latter’s supporters attacked Ajnala police station and injured several police personnel, seeking his release.
For record, tension had gripped the border district Amritsar throughout Thursday after hundreds of supporters of Amritpal had stormed into Ajnala police station breaking through heavy police deployment and barricading demanding Toofan’s release, whom they held was falsely implicated.
Application filed by police for his release
He walked out of jail Friday on the basis of an application filed by police for his release. The district superintendent of police (rural) Satinder Singh told newspersons that the lawyer of the accused had given evidence in the court that the accused was not present at the spot in the alleged kidnapping incident on the basis of which he was discharged. Singh, however, remained mum on the issue of cases against violent protesters.
A high voltage drama had prevailed in Ajnala town as the number of protesters, many of whom carried swords, traditional weapons and even guns, had swelled from hundreds to thousands and moved towards the police station complex. According to information, at least 20 police personnel had sustained injuries. The protesters had also reportedly threatened to disturb the law and order if Toofan was not released and relented after police assured them of his release.
Case against Toofan
Toofan and several others were booked by police on February 16, 2023, in a case in which he had allegedly kidnapped one Barinder Singh from Ajnala, taken him to an unknown place and brutally beaten him.
It may be recalled that a Khalistani sympathiser and radical preacher, Amritpal, 29, was also made the head of the Sikh organisation ``Waris Punjab De’’, which was funded by Punjabi singer Deep Sidhu, who died in a road accident last year.
AAP get opposition flak
Meanwhile, the ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government came under heavy fire from opposition with the president of the principal opposition party Congress president Amarinder Singh Raja Warring condemning the Ajnala violence.
While warning the AAP government against letting such incidents go without law taking its own course, he said, the people of Punjab had not elected the AAP government to push Punjab back to the dark days of violence. “What we are seeing today is reminiscent of the past which every Punjabi is scared of”, he said, while asking the Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann to take firm action.
Condemning Amritpal for carrying holy Bir of Guru Granth Sahib to the police station, Warring said, it showed only his (Amritpal Singh) cowardice.
He also criticized the Punjab government for succumbing to the pressure of the protestors and deciding to withdraw the cases of violence. “You are setting a dangerous precedent and there will be no end to it”, he warned the Chief Minister while asking him to let the law take its own course and not surrender to lawlessness.
The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) president Sukhbir Singh Badal also came out strongly against “the sacrilege committed by lawless elements at Ajnala trying to use the Holy Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji as a shield for their selfish motives and by taking the sacred scripture to a mere a police station’’. He lashed out at both the BJP government at the Centre and the AAP govt in Punjab for vitiating the atmosphere in the state and ruining the hard earned atmosphere of peace and communal harmony in the state.
The BJP also blasted the AAP government with senior BJP leader Capt Amarinder Singh stating the Ajnala incident was not only a complete collapse of the law and order situation in Punjab but was more serious than that. The state BJP vice president Subhash Sharma also said that the incident was an open challenge to the state government and Punjab police.
AAP takes on opposition
Meanwhile, the AAP Cabinet minister on Friday held that police personnel were attacked by the protesters by using holy Guru Granth Sahib as a shield and that the police acted with restraint. Accusing opposition of running slanderous campaigns to tarnish AAP government image, cabinet minister Kuldeep Dhaliwal held that the law and order situation was intact in Punjab.
