Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal on Saturday lauded the Bhagwant Mann government for the police crackdown on separatist elements linked with ‘Waris Punjab De’, an outfit headed by radical Sikh preacher Amritpal Singh who continues to be on the run for a week. Addressing the gathering in Jalandhar, the AAP national convener asserted that the Punjab goverment will not hesitate in taking tough decisions to maintain law and order. (Also Read | Law and order in control, won’t let Punjab become Afghanistan: Bhagwant Mann)
“In the past few days, you saw how some people tried to disturb peace in Punjab,” he said.
“We do not have to allow the atmosphere to be spoiled at any cost,” he said, adding, “We have to maintain peace, law and order in Punjab.”
Kejriwal along with Punjab chief minister Bhagwant Mann was in Jalandhar to lay the foundation stone of Sri Guru Ravidas Bani Adhyan Centre at Dera Sachkhand Ballan.
“Sometimes, tough decisions have to be taken. But if our AAP government in Punjab under the leadership of Bhagwant Mann will have to take tough decisions then we will not hesitate from taking them,” he added.
“Mann saab took tough decisions, but without a bullet being fired and blood being shed peace is maintained in the entire Punjab today,” he said.
The whereabouts of Amritpal Singh and his key associate Papalpreet Singh remain unknown after they were allegedly harboured by a woman at her home in Shahabad in Haryana’s Kurukshetra district on March 19.
On Friday, Mann made an emotive appeal to the people of the state in his video message, saying some people are trying to divide the state along sectarian lines for the sake of their vested interests. In a veiled attack on fugitive Waris Punjab De chief, Mann said that such self-proclaimed leaders of religion have nothing to do with the state and its people and just want to disturb the peace and amity.
“It is very easy to give the sermons of taking weapons to the sons of other families, but such preachers run away from these things when they face the harsh realities. Punjabis should not sway away from the ideas of such self-proclaimed preachers who have no emotional bonding with the state and its people. The sole motive of these leaders was to disturb the hard-earned peace of the state through their venomous ideas,” Mann said in his video message.
