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Manish Kumar runs a automotive rental service within the metropolis of Jalandhar in India’s northern state of Punjab. For the previous two weeks, his enterprise has been struggling—beginning on March 18, when, for 4 days, cellular web was shut down throughout massive areas of the state on the order of the federal government. A lot of his prospects use Google Pay to pay their payments. “Most individuals lately favor to pay by way of ecommerce,” he mentioned. “The shutdown meant they couldn’t try this.”
From March 18 to 21, 27 million folks throughout Punjab had been left with out cellular web entry, disrupting lives and companies. In some districts, the blackout went on for greater than per week. As the federal government tried to cease the unfold of data—or, in its phrases, “faux information”—it demanded that Twitter block greater than 120 accounts, from these belonging to native journalists to that of Canadian politician Jagmeet Singh.
It was all to hunt for one man—a 30-year-old Sikh separatist, Amritpal Singh Sandhu.
Sandhu is a preacher, and a distinguished determine in a motion demanding the creation of an impartial state for the Sikh group, often known as Khalistan. The motion has sympathizers among the many massive Sikh diaspora, significantly within the UK and Canada, however Indian officers deal with it as a menace to nationwide safety.
Sandhu’s rise in Punjab politics has been speedy. Till final yr, he was based mostly in Dubai, working for his household’s transport enterprise. Then, in March 2022, he grew to become a shock alternative as head of Waris Punjab De, a strain group based to advocate for farmers’ rights in Punjab. In August, he returned to Punjab.
The style of his arrival appeared calibrated to drive consideration on social media. He landed dressed like a well-known Sikh militant, Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, who was killed by authorities forces contained in the Golden Temple in Amritsar in 1984. Sandhu’s supporters posted the picture throughout a number of Fb pages, consideration began to snowball on-line, and his profile grew till his story broke out on mainstream media.
“He was clean-shaven till a yr in the past,” says Hartosh Singh Bal, govt editor of The Caravan journal, who has written extensively about Punjab. “All of a sudden, he comes into Punjab, claims many issues, grows his hair, baptizes himself, and grows a following. There’s a big quantity of building on this man, who by no means had assist on the bottom on any massive degree.”
His attain additionally grew among the many big Sikh diaspora. Many households have members abroad, the results of emigration waves—certainly one of which got here after big riots sparked by Bhindranwale’s dying. Cash from the diaspora helps causes and politicians, making abroad Sikhs influential within the state’s political life.
Then, in February, Sandhu and a gaggle of armed supporters stormed a police station in Ajnala, 15 miles from Amritsar in Western Punjab, in retaliation for the arrest of certainly one of his aides. Six law enforcement officials had been injured. The occasion gave Sandhu an aura, Bal mentioned. However it was some time earlier than the authorities lastly began their operation to search out him.
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