Special teams dispatched to Haryana and Uttar Pradesh
Punjab Police increased their manhunt for Waris Punjab De chief Amritpal Singh nearly 48 hours after he appeared to have given them the slip yet again, being observed in a Hoshiarpur village on Tuesday evening before disappearing.
Meanwhile, on Thursday, a purported audio message from Amritpal emerged on social media, a day after he issued a video message breaking his silence about the crackdown on him and his aides. Amritpal can be heard in the audio message asking the Akal Takht acting jathedar Giani Harpreet Singh to convene a Sarbat Khalsa (Sikh congregation) to show that he (the jathedar) is the community's leader. Hours later, a second video of the radical leader was widely shared on Facebook, in which he is seen repeating what he said in the audio recording.
Special squads have also been dispatched to Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, in case the pro-Khalistan leader has escaped from Punjab. According to officials engaged in the search, Amritpal was travelling from Hoshiarpur to Phagwara on Tuesday when police tapped the location of a mobile number he was briefly using.
A police squad pursued Amritpal's vehicle, but he managed to avoid them by driving to Marnaiyan Kalan village and abandoning the car at a dead end, according to officials. According to a police officer engaged in the investigation, Amritpal vanished after crossing the wall of a gurdwara with his associate Papalpreet Singh and one other person.
According to officials engaged in the investigation, the video clip that surfaced on social media on Wednesday was uploaded from a UK-based IP address. The police department declined to remark on the matter on the record.
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