CHANDIGARH/DIBRUGARH, Mar 19:Police today conducted flag marches and searches across Punjab in their manhunt for radical preacher Amritpal Singh, arresting 34 more supporters and shifting four men in custody to a jail in far-off Assam.The Punjab and Haryana High Court has, however, asked the State Government to respond on Tuesday to a habeas corpus petition, claiming that the preacher is already in illegal police custody and should be released.Justice N S Shekhawat held the hearing at his home-office as the courts were closed.Police stuck to their version that the “Waris Punjab De” chief gave them the slip during a car chase in Jalandhar district on Saturday, when the crackdown against the group began. They have slapped fresh FIRs against the Khalistan sympathiser and his supporters.Section 144 of the CrPc, which prohibits congregations, was imposed in the Union Territory of Chandigarh, the joint capital of Punjab and Haryana. Prohibitory orders were already in force in some parts of Punjab.Police recovered a second vehicle in the case, an abandoned pick-up with a gun, a sword and several cartridges in Jalandhar district’s Salema village and said it appeared to be a part of Amritpal Singh’s cavalcade.The crackdown has come weeks after Singh and his supporters barged into the Ajnala police station near Amritsar, extracting an assurance that an arrested man would be released.Twenty-one Amritpal supporters were taken into custody near Boparai Kalan in Jalandhar district when they tried to stage a ‘dharna’ over the previous days’ action.These detentions are apparently not part of the arrests’ tally given by police – 78 on Saturday and 34 more on Sunday. Earlier, police said nine firearms have also been seized.
