Amritpal Singh rose to prominence in latest months demanding the creation of Khalistan, a separate Sikh homeland, and together with his hardline interpretation of Sikhism at rallies in rural pockets of the northern state of some 30 million individuals. 

Last month Singh, 30, and his supporters armed with swords, knives and weapons raided a police station after one among his aides was arrested for alleged assault and tried kidnapping. 

The brazen daytime raid within the outskirts of Amritsar — residence to the holiest Sikh shrine, the Golden Temple — left a number of police injured and heaped strain on authorities to behave in opposition to Singh.

After the operation started on Saturday, Punjab police tweeted late within the day that 78 had been arrested within the “mega crackdown”. 

But Singh himself was not regarded as amongst them.

On Sunday, there was a serious police presence throughout Punjab, particularly in rural pockets and round Singh’s village of Jallupur Khera, native media reported.

The police mentioned that its “manhunt” was ongoing and the general “situation is under control, citizens (are) requested to not believe in rumours”.

Local media experiences mentioned that the Punjab authorities ordered the cell web shutdown to be in place till midday (0630 GMT) on Monday.

It was fearful that social media could possibly be used to unfold rumours and misinformation which may spark road violence.

Indian authorities often shut down cell web companies, significantly within the restive northern area of Kashmir.

Punjab — with about 58 p.c Sikhs and 39 p.c Hindus — was rocked by a violent separatist motion for Khalistan within the Eighties and early Nineteen Nineties when 1000’s of individuals died.

The violence peaked in 1984 after a botched raid in opposition to a couple of hundred radical separatists, a few of them armed, contained in the Golden Temple headed by the hardline Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale.

This led to the assassination of India’s prime minister Indira Gandhi by her Sikh safety guards a couple of months later, which in flip sparked anti-Sikh riots in Delhi and elsewhere that left a number of thousand extra individuals useless. 

The separatist motion later misplaced quite a lot of help, with its most vocal advocates immediately primarily among the many Punjabi diaspora in Canada, Australia, Britain and elsewhere.

India has usually complained to respective governments over the actions of Sikh separatists who, it says, have been making an attempt to revive the insurgency with a large monetary push.  

bb/stu/ssy