CHANDIGARH: A meeting with a group of senior high court lawyers was held at the Sangrur residence of Simranjit Singh Mann, Member of Parliament and president of Shiromani Akali Dal (Amritsar), recently to take advice on, among other things, regarding the ‘fiery” anti-India speeches of Amritpal Singh, president of Waris Punjab De.

According to highly-placed Punjab police sources, the lawyers were shown videos of Amritpal’s speeches allegedly spreading hatred and inciting youths to get armed for a struggle to get “azaadi” to know if these could invite legal action against him.

It is learnt that the lawyers after watching the videos of the speeches, advised Mann to convey to Amritpal to tone down his speeches or else he would have to face action under stringent provisions of the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA). They pointed out that action in similar cases was being taken in Uttar Pradesh by the Yogi Aditya Nath government. The accused jailed under UAPA do not easily get bail.

However, a police officer who is keeping a watch on the activities of Amritpal said that the religious leader, to date, did not advocate armed struggle against the state nor was personally involved in any act of violence.

After examining the latest speech of Amritpal given in Mehraj village in support of gangster-turned-social activist Lakha Sidhana, the police felt that he had now softened his tone and tenure for good.

Advocate Ranjan Lakhanpal, associated with Simranjit Mann for a long time, however said that the lawyers had met the MP primarily to discuss the defamation case that was to be filed against the Punjab government. The Panchayat Minister Kuldip Singh Dhaliwal had claimed that Mann was an illegal occupant of about 100 acres of panchayat land in a village near Mohali. Mann contested the claim saying he legally owned only 5 acres.

Iqbal Singh Tiwana, secretary to Mann, told indianarrative.com that a defamation suit had been filed last week in the court of District and Sessions Judge, Chandigarh. It was also decided to take all legal steps possible to seek early elections to the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee, due for the last over 11 years.