Bhai Amritpal Singh

Bhai Amritpal Singh heads Waris Punjab De and is the Independent member of the Lok Sabha for Khadoor Sahib, elected in June 2024 while in jail. He has been in custody at Dibrugarh in Assam since April 2023. He is a living person and a contested one: his supporters see a Panthic voice, while the Punjab and Union governments treat him as a threat to public order. What follows is limited to what outlets have reported.

Background. The Tribune reported that he enrolled in a diploma in mechanical engineering at a polytechnic in Kapurthala in 2009 and dropped out, and that he moved to Dubai. Caravan reports that he returned to India in August 2022 after about a decade there. Waris Punjab De was founded by the actor and activist Deep Sidhu, who died in a road accident on 15 February 2022. The Tribune noted that Amritpal's leadership of the group was announced through a Facebook page that was allegedly hacked. He was baptised at Anandpur Sahib on 25 September 2022, and a dastarbandi was held on 29 September at Rode, the ancestral village of Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale. He ran an "Amrit Parchar" campaign and, according to The Wire, has publicly demanded Khalistan since September 2022, calling it the "permanent solution" to Punjab's problems.

Key moments

• Mid-February 2023: Ajnala police registered a case on the complaint of Varinder Singh, who alleged he had been kidnapped and beaten, naming Amritpal. His aide Lovepreet Singh Toofan was arrested on 18 February.
• 23 February 2023: Amritpal led supporters, many of them armed with swords, lathis and guns and escorting a palki sahib of Guru Granth Sahib, to Ajnala police station. They broke the barricades; at least six police officers were hurt. Police agreed to release Lovepreet on the evidence the supporters furnished, and a court ordered his release on 24 February. A special investigation team was formed. Amritpal blamed police wrongdoing, and his supporters said Lovepreet was falsely booked. The Wire's writer said video visuals showed supporters storming the station without provocation.
• 18 to 20 March 2023: police began a crackdown. By 20 March they said 112 people had been arrested in what they called preventive arrests, and mobile internet and SMS were suspended across Punjab. Police alleged that supporters carried arms illegally and received money from abroad.
• 23 April 2023: arrested after 34 days on the run, and detained under the National Security Act at Dibrugarh jail in Assam.
• 4 June 2024: won Khadoor Sahib as an Independent by 1,97,120 votes over the Congress candidate Kulbir Singh Zira, while detained.
• April 2026: his NSA detention period ended. Punjab Police then formally arrested him in the Ajnala police station violence case, and on orders of the Punjab and Haryana High Court he remains in judicial custody at Dibrugarh on security grounds, the Tribune reported on 7 October 2026.

Politics. By August 2026 his party, Akali Dal (Waris Punjab De), was still unregistered, with his father Tarsem Singh as acting president, and was preparing for the 2027 Punjab Assembly election. ThePrint reported that it had named Satwant Singh, son of Kehar Singh, as its first candidate, for Bassi Pathana, aimed to "cast a wider net for the panthic vote", and had been joined in June by the rebel Akali MLA Manpreet Singh Ayali. The same report described the party as placing itself in direct contest with the Shiromani Akali Dal.

Known for: the Ajnala police station episode of February 2023 and the crackdown that followed, and winning Khadoor Sahib from jail in 2024.