New Delhi: On Thursday, Union Home Minister Amit Shah met with Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann, who pledged cooperation between the federal government and his state on the issue of law and order. Meanwhile, 1,900 members of the Central Reserve Police Force and its specialised anti-riot unit were being sent to the state to bolster its security. It was a topic of conversation between the two heads of state. According to reports, Mann explained the sequence of events that led up to the Ajnala incident to Shah.
To secure the release of his aide and kidnapping case accused Lovepreet Singh, self-styled Sikh preacher and Khalistan sympathiser Amritpal Singh and his supporters, some of whom brandished swords and guns, broke through barricades and barged into a police station in Ajnala on the outskirts of the Amritsar city on February 23. The chief minister said in a tweet in Punjabi that the "Centre and Punjab will work together on the subject of law and order".
Last week, according to official sources, the Union home ministry ordered the deployment of 18 companies to Punjab to "assist the state administration with law and order tasks." Eight of the 18 units are recruited from the Rapid Action Force (RAF), which is responsible for quelling riots, while the remainder are standard units. Over 1,900 people make up the combined strength of these businesses.—Inputs from Agencies