Ajnala

Ajnala is a town near Amritsar, in the Majha. Two separate episodes put it in the record: a well of 1857 and a police station of 2023.

The well. According to Frederick Cooper, then Amritsar's deputy commissioner, 282 sepoys of the 26th Bengal Native Infantry who had fled the Mian Mir cantonment at Lahore in 1857 were captured, killed at Ajnala and buried in an abandoned well beneath a religious building. The well, once called Kalianwala Khu and now Shaheedan da Khu, lies on the premises of Gurdwara Shaheed Ganj. Excavation from December 2012 recovered about 90 skulls, 170 intact jaws, 26 skeletons joined to skulls and over 5,000 teeth, with East India Company coins and two British medals, according to researcher Surinder Kochhar. A 2022 study in Frontiers in Genetics, with Panjab University's J.S. Sehrawat as first author, found the remains were of adult men from Bengal, Bihar, Odisha and eastern Uttar Pradesh. It ruled out the theory that they were 1947 victims: no coin was dated after 1856.

The police station.

• 23 February 2023: supporters of Amritpal Singh, head of Waris Punjab De, go to Ajnala police station to demand the release of his aide Lovepreet Singh Toofan, held on a kidnapping complaint. ThePrint reports they carried the Guru Granth Sahib in a vehicle, broke through a police cordon, clashed with police and entered the station, some with swords and sticks. Police did not act: the SSP said it was not advisable with the Guru Granth Sahib present. Toofan was to be freed the next morning and an inquiry team set up. Amritpal said the case was not based on evidence.
• From 23 April 2023: after a 35-day manhunt and arrest in Moga, Amritpal is held in Dibrugarh in Assam.
• 22 and 23 April 2026: his National Security Act detention ends at midnight. The Punjab and Haryana High Court allows Punjab to arrest him in the Ajnala case and keep him in Assam, citing law and order. Amritsar (Rural) Police arrest him inside Dibrugarh jail on 23 April and he is remanded for two days. The charges include attempt to murder, assault on public servants and criminal conspiracy, and he faces more than a dozen other FIRs.

What it means today. Ajnala is now the case on which Punjab holds an elected MP in Assam, after the National Security Act detention that had held him there ended.