Amritpal Singh is now separated from close aide Papalpreet, who masterminded his escape

Tribune News Service

Deepkamal Kaur

Jalandhar, March 31

Having provided all logistics and contacts required for hiding for the past over 13 days to Khalistani sympathiser Amritpal Singh, his close aide, scribe and social media handler Papalpreet Singh is learnt to have gone on a different route since the Innova SUV they were travelling in from Phagwara to Hoshiarpur got intercepted on March 28 evening.

As the intelligence teams of the Punjab Police started chasing them from Rawalpindi police station on that evening while they were on their way to an interview with a news channel in Hoshiarpur, the four persons on board abandoned the Innova car outside a gurdwara in Marnaian village, scaled a wall and fled away.

While Amritpal Singh and another person (reportedly detained today) fled towards one side, Papalpreet and driver Joga Singh ran in another direction. While the cops kept on searching the village, Papalpreet and Joga Singh took refuge in a dera at Hoshiarpur. The police have gathered a CCTV footage of Papalpreet casually walking within the compound of this dera and connecting link roads on March 29 morning. Having found clues to their stay in Hoshiarpur itself, the police teams used drones yesterday to track any suspicious movement in the area but it perhaps was quite late.

The police officials said that from fresh leads emerging, Papalpreet and Joga Singh had moved towards Sahnewal. Here too they had a stopover at a gurdwara. While Joga Singh is learnt to have been detained (on the basis of phone location that he kept on using), Papalpreet has reportedly escaped yet again.

Notably, Joga Singh was the driver of the Scorpio getaway vehicle from the gurdwara in Uttarakhand and had brought Amritpal and Papalpreet back to Punjab.

Police sources said Amritpal had escaped from the spot on foot and he too could be in a dera. Since he could not join Papalpreet while on the run, he kept releasing his audio and video messages. The video has been shot by Amritpal on selfie mode since he reportedly is alone at some location and has been desperately pleading Akal Takht jathedar for announcing Sarbat Khalsa.

The cops who have been tracking him closely and following all the developments are of the opinion that it would be easier to catch Amritpal now, since he has lost his mastermind, could be at loss of resources and make a mistake. They, however, did not also rule out the probability of both somehow getting together and plan their next moves.

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