Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann on Thursday met Union Home Minister Amit Shah and discussed with him the prevailing law and order situation in the state and decided that the central and state security agencies will work together to deal with all security-related issues, sources said.
Mann briefed Shah about the circumstances leading to the Ajnala incident. On February 23, self-styled Sikh preacher and Khalistan sympathiser Amritpal Singh and his supporters, some of them brandishing swords and guns, broke through barricades and barged into a police station in Ajnala on the outskirts of the Amritsar city, extracting an assurance from the police that his aide and kidnapping case accused Lovepreet Singh would be released, sources said.
Mann said in a tweet in Punjabi that the "Center-Punjab will work together on the issue of law and order".
The chief minister said he had discussed with the home minister the issue of drones and drugs along the border.
He said the issue of shifting the barbed wire along the border was also discussed. Mann said he has asked Shah to release Punjab's stalled rural development fund soon.
The central government officials said the Union Home Ministry is "closely monitoring the situation in Punjab in the wake of renewed activities of some Khalistani supporters.
Amritpal Singh, who heads an organisation called 'Waris Punjab De', and his supporters had brought a vehicle carrying a copy of the Guru Granth Sahib for holding "Amrit Sanchar" (a Sikh ceremony) at the police station.
Earlier, Mann had said: "Those who take the Guru Granth Sahib to police stations as a shield cannot be called 'Waris' of Punjab and Punjabiyat in any way".
The Punjab Police said on February 24 that the demonstrators had used the holy Guru Granth Sahib as a shield and attacked police personnel in a cowardly manner, leaving six of them injured.
Lovepreet Singh walked out of jail on February 24.
Dubai-returned Amritpal Singh was last year anointed head of 'Waris Punjab De', which was founded by actor and activist Deep Sidhu who died in a road accident in February last year. The event was held at Moga's Rode, the native village of slain militant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale.
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