KHALISTAN EXTREMISM MONITOR
A project of the Institute for Conflict Management
A project of the Institute for Conflict Management
Just a poster remains of the false ‘enigma’ that Khalistani supporter Amritpal Singh had built in his village near Amritsar before his arrest this April. His ‘radicalisation’ infrastructure stands dismantled and Singh along with his aides is now locked far away in Assam’s Dibrugarh jail.
Surprisingly, residents of Jallupur Khera village now say that Khalistan was a “bogey” created by Singh and no such sentiment is there on the ground. “Khalistan is no issue, I don’t feel so…there is nothing on the ground, some people like Amritpal created it. How can Khalistan be made? This is India and it will remain so,” two village elders, Satpal Singh and Harman Singh, told News18 in Amritpal’s village on Thursday.
The local gurdwara where Singh used to give his sermons, and a structure nearby where he ran a so-called de-addiction centre, lie deserted. Villagers said the police raided that structure to recover arms and claimed that Singh radicalised youths here and gave them arms training, rather than weaning them off drugs.
Not many in the village, however, want to talk about Singh anymore, saying he is a ‘finished force’ and those close to his family admit there is little chance of him stepping out of jail for many years given the strong charges put on him. Singh had absconded in March after the police tried to arrest him and he finally surrendered in Rode village of Punjab after 35 days.
At his family home too, there is a pall of gloom with his parents getting few chances to meet him in jail. Some youths in the village, however, say Singh did a good job on drug eradication and his private militia enforced a drug-use ban in the area. “He was a man who got misguided…there were no thefts in the area when he was here as there was no drug abuse. Now, again, you can find drug addicts everywhere around the village and neighbouring areas,” they said.
People in Jallupur Khera, in fact, say the bigger issue is jobs and unemployment. “There are no jobs here…the children of all of us are abroad in Canada. The Punjab government should work on that as, if jobs come, the youth will not be misguided towards drugs or Khalistani talk,” Satpal and Harnam said. It is, however, safe to say that the Amritpal factor is finished.