Grieving Kin Alleges Communication Restrictions During Prison Visit with Amritpal

Family members of radical Sikh preacher Amritpal Singh, who met him at the Dibrugarh jail in Assam on Thursday, said that they could not discuss the prospects of him contesting the Lok Sabha polls due to strictness of the authorities.

Family members of radical Sikh preacher Amritpal Singh, who met him at the Dibrugarh jail in Assam on Thursday, said that they could not discuss the prospects of him contesting the Lok Sabha polls due to ''strictness of the authorities''. Speaking to reporters, they said they would take up the ''non-cooperative attitude'' of the jail authorities with the Dibrugarh district commissioner and return next week for a detailed discussion with Singh. Their visit comes a day after Singh's legal counsel Rajdev Singh Khalsa had claimed that he would contest the Lok Sabha polls from the Khadoor Sahib constituency in Punjab. Amritpal Singh, chief of the 'Waris Punjab De' outfit, was arrested in April last year and the stringent National Security Act (NSA) was invoked against him. He along with nine of his associates is currently lodged at the Dibrugarh jail. Amritpal Singh's father Tarsem Singh, uncle Sukhchain Singh, wife Kirandeep Kaur and other relatives reached here earlier in the day, and some of them later visited him in the jail.

They were subjected to a thorough security check at the gate, with the assistant jailor Nayan Jyoti Dutta also going through the documents they were carrying, officials said.

Tarsem Singh and Sukhchain Singh later told reporters that it cannot be confirmed at the moment whether Amritpal Singh will be contesting the elections.

They claimed that they met Amritpal Singh only for a few moments and could not discuss the matter properly due to the strictness of the jail authorities.

They will meet the district commissioner on Friday and come back again after a week to discuss the matter with Amritpal Singh. Khalsa had met the preacher on Wednesday and requested him to contest the polls. ''I met 'bhai sahab' (Amritpal Singh) in Dibrugarh central jail and during the meeting, I requested bhai sahab that in the interests of 'Khalsa Panth', he should fight elections this time from Khadoor Sahib to become a member of parliament. Bhai sahab accepted my request in the Panthic interests... He will fight as an Independent candidate,'' he had claimed. Amritpal Singh, who styled himself after Khalistani militant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, was arrested in Moga's Rode village on April 23 last year following a more than one-month-long manhunt.

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