Radical preacher Amritpal Singh to fight LS polls as Independent

Amritsar: Jailed radical Sikh preacher Amritpal Singh's mother on Friday said he will contest the Lok Sabha polls from Punjab's Khadoor Sahib seat as an Independent candidate.

Earlier on Wednesday, Amritpal Singh's legal counsel Rajdev Singh Khalsa had also claimed that the 'Waris Punjab De' chief would contest the elections.

Speaking to media persons here on Friday, Balwinder Kaur said her son has agreed to enter the fray.

Amritpal Singh was arrested in April last year and the stringent NSA was invoked against him. He, along with nine of his associates, is currently lodged in the Dibrugarh jail in Assam.

He was arrested in Moga's Rode village on April 23 last year following an over one-month-long manhunt.

The Khalistan sympathiser had escaped the police net in Jalandhar district in March last year, switching vehicles and changing appearances.

The Punjab Police had launched a crackdown after the February 23 Ajnala incident last year in which Amritpal Singh and his supporters, some of them brandishing swords and guns, broke through barricades and barged into the police station on the outskirts of Amritsar city, and clashed with police for the release of Lovepreet Singh Toofan, one of his aides.