Amaan Bali: Jasbir Singh Rode Maintains His Son Gurmukh Singh Is Innocent
Rode, who himself has served eight years in prison after 1984 and then again in the 1990s, maintains that Gurmukh is innocent and will be released soon.
Amaan Bali
August 22, 2021 | 2 min. read | Original Reporting
Punjab Police raided the house of former Akal Takht Jathedar Jasbir Singh Rode in New Hardial Nagar, Jalandhar.
Kapurthala police unit alleges that it has recovered two hand-grenades, a box of detonators, two tubes suspected to containing RDX, a roll of wire used in explosives, ₹3.75-lakh Indian currency, a licensed pistol, 14 Indian passports, a .30-calibre pistol, and two magazines from his house.
According to Rode, police raided his house at around 12:15 am on Friday. The police teams entered his home by climbing up the walls. Rode who is himself a heart patient says that police searched for nearly two hours and found nothing in the first round of raids.
However, the police took his son, Gurmukh Singh, along with them and returned an hour later to search again. This time the raid continued for an hour and police came down with three to four bags. He shares that he was not told that bags contained any of the material for which Gurmukh was arrested.
Rode said that he has been questioned multiple times about where he gets the money to fund langar and medical camps. When asked about the alleged Pakistan connection as speculated by Police, he said that every allegation is linked to Pakistan here and he will not be surprised if they end up laying false charges on Gurmukh. Rode, who himself has served eight years in prison after 1984 and then again in the 1990s, maintains that Gurmukh is innocent and will be released soon.
Gurmukh was presented in court on Friday evening, alongside a Gagandeep Singh, for charges under relevant sections of the Unlawful Activities (Preventions) Act (UAPA), Explosives Act, and Arms Act. The accused were sent to seven-day police custody.
Sikh activists and lawyers are creating awareness about the arrest of Gurmukh Singh, and suggest it is part of a bigger trend of arresting and intimidating Sikh youth in Punjab - including with the use of the draconian UAPA.
Amaan Bali is born and raised in Kashmir. He is an entrepreneur and author of the upcoming book, “Growing up on the right side of Kashmir History”. You can find him on Twitter at @amaanbali.
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