Amritpal Singh's NSA detention ends and Punjab Police arrest him in Dibrugarh jail

Who: Amritpal Singh, the independent MP for Khadoor Sahib and head of Waris Punjab De. He has been held in Dibrugarh Central Jail in Assam since his arrest in Moga on April 23, 2023, after a 35-day manhunt. The other actors were the Punjab government, Punjab Police and the Punjab and Haryana High Court.

What: His detention under the National Security Act (NSA) ran out at midnight on April 22, 2026. Around April 16 the Punjab government asked the High Court not for another preventive detention order but for permission to arrest him in a pending FIR and keep him in Dibrugarh. It also asked that remand, chargesheet and trial be conducted by video conferencing. State counsel said the state did not want him in Punjab and wanted to arrest him and hold him there. The state cited 12 cases against him, including murder and offences under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, said Assam had no objection, and said Punjab had already passed three detention orders. Reports say the court allowed the arrest, citing law and order, and directed that proceedings run by video link from a trial court in Amritsar. ThePrint (17 April) adds that the bench headed by Chief Justice Sheel Nagu also dismissed Amritpal's own plea challenging his third detention under the NSA; The Tribune reported the ruling on 16 April and quoted the court calling that order immune from judicial review. On April 23 an Amritsar Rural Police team arrested him inside the jail in the Ajnala police station attack case, for which the FIR was registered on February 24, 2023 and in which about 40 others also face charges, including attempt to murder. He was taken to Dibrugarh Police Station for a two-day remand and was to return to the jail.

Where: Dibrugarh in Assam. The legal fight was before the High Court in Chandigarh, with the trial in Amritsar.

Why it mattered: Amritpal won Khadoor Sahib in 2024 while in custody and took his oath on parole on July 5, 2024. Later parole requests were refused on security grounds. In November 2025 the Supreme Court declined to hear his plea against the NSA detention and sent him to the High Court, asking it to decide within about six weeks. His counsel, Colin Gonsalves, argued that the detention rested on a single FIR in which a chargesheet had already been filed. Earlier, in February 2025, Amritpal told the High Court that his absence left his constituency unrepresented. The April 2026 move shifted him from preventive detention to criminal custody without a release in between, and kept him in Assam rather than Punjab.